Author Spotlight: Boyd Taylor, Author of The Hero of San Jacinto and The Antelope Play

Set in present-day Austin, Texas, budding historian Donnie Ray Quinn stumbles upon an old letter in the musty bowels of the Texas State archives. Donnie has discovered Sam Payne’s not so valiant capture of Mexican leader Santa Anna during the Battle of San Jacinto. His findings are published in the local monthly magazine, Texas Today.

The article eventually becomes fodder in the gubernatorial race between Democratic upstart Bob Braeswood and Republican favorite Sam Eben Payne V, the great-great-grandson of the not so valiant Texas hero. Braeswood is intent on exploiting the past, while Payne will do anything to suppress it. In the ensuing battle, Donnie finds his beliefs, not to mention his relationships, stretched to the limit. Will he side with money and power or truth and integrity?

Taylor takes us on a scenic tour of Austin events and sights through the eyes of our 28-year old drunken playboy protagonist without asking his reader to deal with the atrocious Austin traffic.

Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: Katherine Brown Press (September 14, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0615662471
ISBN-13: 978-0615662473

NEW RELEASE!

When Austin native Donnie Cuinn accepts a job as an associate in a Texas Panhandle law firm, his boredom and disdain for Velda, a sleepy Texas town, is forgotten when he gets caught up in a struggle over water rights, possible radioactive contamination of the nation’s largest underground fresh water supply, and the violence of an invading Mexican drug cartel. Along the way, Donnie learns to respect the local rancher, whose brother is at the center of the troubles, and to come to terms with the violent death of his young Mexican wife.

Paperback: 260 pages
Publisher: Katherine Brown Press (July 31, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0989470709
ISBN-13: 978-0989470704

Read an excerpt:

The full moon cast shadows from the bare trees that lined the gravel road on the other side of the cattle guard. The winter wind had died down into its midnight quiet, and the cold air was settling over the arroyos, covering the low indentions in the ranch land with a light frost. A black Cadillac SUV pulled up by the cattle guard. Two men jumped out of the back of the SUV. They wore heavy coats and their hats were pulled down low on their heads. Without speaking, they pulled the motionless man out of the back seat, bumping his head on the hard dirt. “Ten cuidado!” one said. “Lo queremos vivo.”

The man moaned. They took him, one by the shoulders, the other by the feet, and tossed him onto the road in front of the cattle guard. They stripped off his boots and socks and threw them in the back of the Cadillac.

“Vamos!” one of them said. They jumped in the SUV and drove away quickly; its black outline disappeared down the country road.

The sun was barely visible over the eastern plateau when the man awoke, shivering from the cold. He struggled to his feet. He hopped across the cattle guard in his bare feet and cried out in pain. When he was finally across, he rested a minute. Then, breathing heavily, he began his walk up the gravel road. He wiped blood from his nose and mouth, held his broken left arm with his right hand, and slowly walked home.

***

The address read, “Don R. Cuinn, Attorney at Law,” so it had to be for him. Don looked at the legal-size envelope and sighed. He recognized the scrawled Las Vegas return address. What now? He tossed the unopened envelope on the pile of documents that Faye had stacked neatly before leaving the office the night before. When the envelope hit the stack, the papers scattered.

He ignored the mess and swiveled in his worn leather chair, passed on to him when Jake got new stuff, and stared through the dusty window at the brown Texas Panhandle landscape. From his aerie on the top floor, the fifth floor of Velda’s tallest building, he could see the end of town to the north where it gave way to the flat land and canyons and dry creeks that stretched to Canada. He couldn’t see his apartment, back to the east, toward the Country Club, and it bothered him. Why do I care?

He couldn’t admit it bothered him because Jake, the Rosen of “Rosen & Associates” had the prime corner office, with windows to the east as well as the north, from which he could keep an eye on all of Velda that mattered: the business district, the city hall, the courthouse, the old residential district, the winding parks and dry creek, and the leafless trees. Not to mention the new developments, both of them, where wealthy Veldanians had built McMansions too big for the lots, like overweight teenagers with their exposed bellies overflowing their jeans at the Arcadia Theater or the mall in Amarillo.

But Don R. Cuinn, the associate in “Rosen & Associates,” could only see to the north, and like everything else today, it grated on his nerves.

Don could not see to the south, thank God, so he didn’t have to look every day at the old warehouse district and railroad tracks, the recently repainted depot reclaimed as a half-assed museum, where the early days of Velda were trumpeted to the five visitors a week. In a good week, he thought. The days when Velda was an important stop on the railroad; when early settlers came to try their luck raising cotton or wheat on the unforgiving Panhandle plains; when most of the farmers were ruined by flooding rains followed by unbelievable drought, forced to sell their land, in which they had invested their life savings, sell it for pennies on the dollar to cattle ranchers. The ranchers, over a decade or two, ended up with most of the land in Velda County, and with the land, the oil money when the boom came.

South of the tracks were the Flats, with its shanty towns and trailer parks, where Velda’s Hispanics and its few blacks and its oil field trash lived uneasily next to each other, huddled against the north wind all winter. And, during the rest of the year, were unable to escape the ceaseless southwest wind or the acetic acid fumes blown over them from the Crackstone Industries’ chemical plant.

Lovely, Don thought.

He shivered. The cold wind leaked into his office, even with the windows painted shut. There was no way to open them in the summer and fall, when the weather was mild and dry and the wind was light enough to be enjoyable. Almost. He selected an old wool sweater from the various pieces of outdoor clothing he kept on the hook behind his door. He put it on, and his corduroy jacket over it, but he was still cold. He had never been this cold growing up in Austin.

He thought of the warm days in Beaumont, where he got his diploma mill law license. Why did I leave? Oh yes, no job. Not even an offer. Law firms knew the worth of a J.D. degree from the Jefferson Davis School of Law. . . warm weather... an image of Mexico City flashed through his mind. Not that. Don’t think about that. Not for an instant.

In a former life, Boyd Taylor was a lawyer and an officer of a large chemical company. A native of Temple, Texas, he graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in government and an LL.B. from the law school. He currently lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, Kitty.

Boyd welcomes inquiries and comments from his readers, who may contact him through:

Katherine Brown Press at kbtpress@ymail.com

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

Visit the author's blog at http://boydtaylorblog.wordpress.com/

Author Spotlight and Interview with Frank Edwards, Author of Final Mercy

Dr. Jack Forester, director of the New Canterbury University Hospital emergency department, is about to win an ongoing battle to modernize the ED when he’s stymied by the power-hungry dean, Bryson Witner. Then someone tries to murder Jack’s mentor and the former dean, setting it up to look like suicide.

Bit by bit, Jack uncovers facts that suggest several other recent tragic accidents may not have been in the least accidental. The deeper he digs, the closer danger creeps, and the phrase “life or death” begins to take on a new and very personal meaning.

Read the excerpt!

He walked faster. Having skipped the media circus at the hospital, he’d caught up on his sleep, and his legs felt strong. Past the main quad and nearing the foot- bridge, he was alone yet had the odd sen- sation someone was trying to get his attention. He stopped and looked around. Nothing.

He continued. Nearer the footbridge, he felt it again. He didn’t stop this time but strode more quickly. He continued through the grove of trees along the iron fence bordering Mt. Seneca Cemetery. Then he was on the footbridge, cars siz- zling by on the wet pavement twenty-five feet below.

He was a third of the way across when he heard someone behind him.

The footsteps approached at a jogger’s pace, and the back of Gavin’s neck tin- gled. He stopped and turned. The man coming toward him wore a black sweat- shirt with the hood drawn tightly around his face.

A potent chill crept up Gavin’s back. He turned and hurried toward the hospital end of the narrow bridge, but it was still fifty feet away and the footfalls were closing.

Read the reviews!

“FINAL MERCY is a medical thriller that I couldn’t put down. I stayed up late on two consecutive nights in enthralled reading. The novelist – who is a medical doctor — not only creates a tale of suspense and intrigue, but he also gives interesting details about hospitals and medical schools and emergency medicine.”


--H.H. Gregory, reader

"What I found most exciting about the story was we know who is behind the wrong doings so it is not so much of a who did it, but a more of a why and how did they do it...I hope that the character of Dr. Jack Forester shows up again in another novel."

--Lucky Rosie's

"...if you love medical TV dramas and such, please get a copy of this book."

--Book Reviews by Molly

A Conversation with Author Frank Edwards

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

With a mother who was a natural story teller, I fell in love with books at a very early age and began writing when I was in my early teens. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do when I graduated from high school and ended up enlisting in the Army. I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but something about the experience of being in Vietnam lit a fire in my belly to become both a physician and a writer. William Carlos Williams became my role model in medical school. After getting my MD I gravitated to emergency medicine, then a brand new specialty, because it would give me a practice where I could more easily carve out blocks of writing time, and also, I think, because it resembled what I’d done as a combat chopper pilot—spells of routine activity broken by unexpected bursts of urgent focused activity. After thirty years, these two parts of my life—medicine and writing—still compliment each other.

Where did you grow up?

I was born in what is now the inner city of Rochester, NY. My parents migrated to the suburbs when I was little, then kept moving further out into the country. Part of my teenage years were spent on the same farm of my mother’s childhood, right next to a creek full of blue gills where I taught myself to fly fish. There was an artesian well that scented every breeze from the north with rotten eggs.

What is your fondest childhood memory?

My parents didn’t have many books in the house, but they did buy a set of storybooks for us kids. This set contained all the old fables, tales, and nursery rhymes. My mother enjoyed reading to us, and I loved every one of those stories and couldn’t get enough. When I was cleaning out my parent’s house after they died a few years ago, I came across another book I’d completely loved when I was little. It was Skipper John’s Cook, by Marcia Brown, and it’s sitting this moment on a shelf not far from my desk. I love to look at the line drawings still. It’s about a boy named Si and his dog George. Si signed on as Captain John’s cook and he became very poplar with the sailors after switching their diet from beans and beans, to fish and fish, and by the time the crew got tired of fish and fish, they were home again. My mother wrote the date she bought the book on the first page. I was three.

When did you begin writing?

I had my first poem published when I was fifteen, also the same year I wrote my first short story, which was science fiction and borrowed a lot of atmosphere from George Orwell.

Do you write during the day, at night or whenever you can sneak a few moments?

I mainly write during the day. But because I can’t do it every day, I grab time whenever I can. I’ve done a lot of writing in the hospital at night when things are slow. That’s where I am right now.

What is this book about?

Final Mercy tells the story of Dr. Jack Forester, whose dream is to modernize the ER and start a training program for emergency doctors. The interim dean of the medical center, however, Dr. Bryson Witner, has begun throwing roadblocks in his path, and the reason appears to be Jack’s refusal to endorse Witner’s ambitions to become the permanent dean. Though a great many people have fallen for Witner’s charm and energy, Jack never fell under his spell. When Jack’s mentor and old friend, Dr. James Gain, returns to town suspecting that something is wrong at the Medical Center, Gavin becomes the victim to a murder attempt set up to look like suicide. Jack doesn’t buy the suicide story, and with the help of a beautiful journalist, Zellie Anderson, he begins a race against time to unravel the truth about Witner’s insanity. The tension builds as someone tries to sabotage Jack’s car, then Zellie doesn’t show up for a date and Jack Forester finds himself on the prow of a small boat in the middle of a blizzard scanning the water with a searchlight.

What inspired you to write it?

I’d been trying for ages to write a literary novel but found myself veering toward the creation of suspense stories and mysteries, and I would stop in frustration. I finally gave into the urge and the end result was Final Mercy. With me being a doctor, it was only natural to give the novel a medical setting. I’d done too much research to pass up.
Who is your biggest supporter?

I’m eternally grateful to have a wife who by and large understands that I need to write.

Who is your favorite author?

A tough question. My taste in books is very eclectic. I love fiction, non-fiction and poetry in just about equal measure. If pressed I’d have to say that my favorite novel would be A Confederacy of Dunces. The character of Ignatius J. Reilly is so beautifully realized, so human, so vital and his quest for self-expression and self-justification is so funny and improbable—I don’t know. I still can really explain why this book works so well for me. There’s just something about the language flowing out and circling up. It’s the cosmos in a teacup. My favorite poet for many years has been Billy Collins.

Was the road to publication smooth sailing or a bumpy ride?

Getting Final Mercy from a cluster of ideas to a published first novel took approximately eight years, and I learned a lot of craft through pure trial and error. Then, last summer, my editor, the talented Liz Burton of Zumaya Publications, and I spent about three weeks doing the final edit, and I cannot begin to describe what a fantastic learning experience that was. We did it in real-time on Google Documents—me in New York State and Liz in Austin, Texas—and it was wonderful, going over the story line by line, tinkering and polishing. Things I’d wrestled with for years finally fell into place. I learned more about the craft of story telling in that three weeks than I had in the previous half a decade. It mainly had to do, I think, with learning how to see each scene through the reader’s eyes.
Where can readers purchase a copy of your book?

Here the link to Final Mercy’s page on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Final-Mercy-Frank-J-Edwards/dp/1936144204. It’s available in paperback and a Kindle version. The book can also be purchased on line at Barnes and Noble, and at Zumaya Publications.

Do you have a website and/or blog where readers can find out more?

My website is http://www.frankjedwards.com/. I’ve got a blog there. I try to keep up a discussion about writing, and would love to have more people visit and join in.

What is the best investment you have made in promoting your book?

The modern state of book promotion is very different from what I’d expected, and is extremely dependent on the Internet. I did two things. One was to develop a relationship with a local publicist, who helped me create a good website. The other was to hook up with book promotion specialist, Dorothy Thompson at http://www.pumpupyourbook.com/.

What is one piece of advice you would like to share with aspiring authors everywhere?

Don’t be discouraged. Persistence really is the key.

What is up next for you?

I’ve got two projects going on right now I’m very excited about—a sequel to Final Mercy, and a book of poems. The sequel is called Bedside. Jack Forester’s wife has discovered a disturbing feature about a new medical device being tested at Jack’s hospital and that has the potential to change human evolution.

Is there anything you would like to add?

Just to thank you again for this opportunity!

Frank J. Edwards was born in Rochester New York. In 1968 he entered the US Army and served a tour in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot. He received a BA with honors in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill then attended medical school at the University of Rochester, graduating with an MD in 1979. In 1989 he received an MFA in writing from Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, NC. After practicing for a decade in North Carolina, he returned to the Rochester, area in 1990 where he remains in active practice.


He has published a number of poems and short stories in literary magazines including Carolina Quarterly and The Virginia Quarterly Review, along with numerous medical articles. In 1988, Henry Holt published his first non-fiction book, Medical Malpractice: Solving the Crisis. His second non-fiction book, The M & M Files: Morbidity and Mortality Rounds in Emergency Medicine was published by Hanley & Belfus in 2002 and has become a standard text in emergency medicine.

For the past thirteen years he has taught creative writing seminars to medical students at the U of R. In 2004, the University of Rochester Press published his collection of poems and short stories, It’ll Ease the Pain.


Final Mercy is his first novel. He is married to a former emergency nurse from Canada and lives with his family on Lake Ontario near Rochester.


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

Final Mercy is available from Amazon as a paperback or in a Kindle edition.

Author Spotlight: Diana Gabladon, Author of Outlander

Claire Randall is leading a double life. She has a husband in one century, and a lover in another…


In 1945, Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon–when she innocently touches a boulder in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of our Lord…1743.

Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire’s destiny in soon inextricably intertwined with Clan MacKenzie and the forbidden Castle Leoch. She is catapulted without warning into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life …and shatter her heart. For here, James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a passion so fierce and a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire…and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

Read an excerpt!

Jamie made a fire in a sheltered spot, and sat down next to it. The rain had eased to a faint drizzle that misted the air and spangled my eyelashes with rainbows when I looked at the flames.

He sat staring into the fire for a long time. Finally he looked up at me, hands clasped around his knees.
"I said before that I'd not ask ye things ye had no wish to tell me. And I'd not ask ye now; but I must know, for your safety as well as mine." He paused, hesitating.
"Claire, if you've never been honest wi' me, be so now, for I must know the truth. Claire, are ye a witch?"

I gaped at him. "A witch? You—you can really ask that?" I thought he must be joking. He wasn't.

He took me by the shoulders and gripped me hard, staring into my eyes as though willing me to answer him.
"I must ask it, Claire! And you must tell me!"

"And if I were?" I asked through dry lips. "If you had thought I were a witch? Would you still have fought for me?"

"I would have gone to the stake with you!" he said violently. "And to hell beyond, if I must. But may the Lord Jesus have mercy on my soul and on yours, tell me the truth!"

The strain of it all caught up with me. I tore myself out of his grasp and ran across the clearing. Not far, only to the edge of the trees; I could not bear the exposure of the open space. I clutched a tree; put my arms around it and dug my fingers hard into the bark, pressed my face to it and shrieked with hysterical laughter.

Jamie's face, white and shocked, loomed up on the other side of the tree. With the dim realization that what I was doing must sound unnervingly like cackling, I made a terrific effort and stopped. Panting, I stared at him for a moment.

"Yes," I said, backing away, still heaving with gasps of unhinged laughter. "Yes, I am a witch! To you, I must be. I've never had smallpox, but I can walk through a room full of dying men and never catch it. I can nurse the sick and breathe their air and touch their bodies, and the sickness can't touch me. I can't catch cholera, either, or lockjaw, or the morbid sore throat. And you must think it's an enchantment, because you've never heard of vaccine, and there's no other way you can explain it."

"The things I know—" I stopped backing away and stood still, breathing heavily, trying to control myself. "I know about Jonathan Randall because I was told about him. I know when he was born and when he'll die, I know about what he's done and what he'll do, I know about Sandringham because ... because Frank told me. He knew about Randall because he ... he ... oh, God!" I felt as though I might be sick, and closed my eyes to shut out the spinning stars overhead.

"And Colum ... he thinks I'm a witch, because I know Hamish isn't his own son. I know ... he can't sire children. But he thought I knew who Hamish's father is ... I thought maybe it was you, but then I knew it couldn't be, and..." I was talking faster and faster, trying to keep the vertigo at bay with the sound of my own voice.

"Everything I've ever told you about myself was true," I said, nodding madly as though to reassure myself. "Everything. I haven't any people, I haven't any history, because I haven't happened yet.

"Do you know when I was born?" I asked, looking up. I knew my hair was wild and my eyes staring, and I didn't care. "On the twentieth of October, in the Year of Our Lord nineteen hundred and eighteen. Do you hear me?" I demanded, for he was blinking at me unmoving, as though paying no attention to a word I said. "I said nineteen eighteen! Nearly two hundred years from now! Do you hear?"

I was shouting now, and he nodded slowly.

"I hear," he said softly.

"Yes, you hear!" I blazed. "And you think I'm raving mad. Don't you? Admit it! That's what you think. You have to think so, there isn't any other way you can explain me to yourself. You can't believe me, you can't dare to. Oh, Jamie..." I felt my face start to crumple. All this time spent hiding the truth, realizing that I could never tell anyone, and now I realized that I could tell Jamie, my beloved husband, the man I trusted beyond all others, and he wouldn't—he couldn't believe me either.

"It was the rocks—the fairy hill. The standing stones. Merlin's stones. That's where I came through." I was gasping, half-sobbing, becoming less coherent by the second. "Once upon a time, but it's really two hundred years. It's always two hundred years, in the stories. ... But in the stories, the people always get back. I couldn't get back." I turned away, staggering, grasping for support. I sank down on a rock, shoulders slumped, and put my head in my hands. There was a long silence in the wood. It went on long enough for the small night birds to recover their courage and start their noises once again, calling to each other with a thin, high zeek! as they hawked for the last insects of the summer.

I looked up at last, thinking that perhaps he had simply risen and left me, overcome by my revelations. He was still there, though, still sitting, hands braced on his knees, head bowed as though in thought.

The hairs on his arms shone stiff as copper wires in the firelight, though, and I realized that they stood erect, like the bristles on a dog. He was afraid of me.

"Jamie," I said, feeling my heart break with absolute loneliness. "Oh, Jamie."

I sat down and curled myself into a ball, trying to roll myself around the core of my pain. Nothing mattered any longer, and I sobbed my heart out.

His hands on my shoulders raised me, enough to see his face. Through the haze of tears, I saw the look he wore in battle, of struggle that had passed the point of strain and become calm certainty.

"I believe you," he said firmly. "I dinna understand it a bit—not yet—but I believe you. Claire, I believe you! Listen to me! There's the truth between us, you and I, and whatever ye tell me, I shall believe it." He gave me a gentle shake.

"It doesna matter what it is. You've told me. That's enough for now. Be still, mo duinne. Lay your head and rest. You'll tell me the rest of it later. And I'll believe you."

I was still sobbing, unable to grasp what he was telling me. I struggled, trying to pull away, but he gathered me up and held me tightly against himself, pushing my head into the folds of his plaid, and repeating over and over again, "I believe you."

At last, from sheer exhaustion, I grew calm enough to look up and say, "But you can't believe me."
He smiled down at me. His mouth trembled slightly, but he smiled.

"Ye'll no tell me what I canna do, Sassenach." He paused a moment. ... A long time later, he spoke.

"All right. Tell me now."

I told him. Told him everything, haltingly but coherently. I felt numb from exhaustion, but content, like a rabbit that has outrun a fox, and found temporary shelter under a log. It isn't sanctuary, but at least it is respite. And I told him about Frank.
"Frank," he said softly. "Then he isna dead, after all."

"He isn't born." I felt another small wave of hysteria break against my ribs, but managed to keep myself under control. "Neither am I."

He stroked and patted me back into silence, making his small murmuring Gaelic sounds.

"When I took ye from Randall at Fort William," he said suddenly, "you were trying to get back. Back to the stones. And ... Frank. That's why ye left the grove."
"Yes."

"And I beat you for it." His voice was soft with regret.

"You couldn't know. I couldn't tell you." I was beginning to feel very drowsy indeed.

"No, I dinna suppose ye could." He pulled the plaid closer around me, tucking it gently around my shoulders. "Do ye sleep now, mo duinne. No one shall harm ye; I'm here."

I burrowed into the warm curve of his shoulder, letting my tired mind fall through the layers of oblivion. I forced myself to the surface long enough to ask, "Do you really believe me, Jamie?"
He sighed, and smiled ruefully down at me.

"Aye, I believe ye, Sassenach. But it would ha' been a good deal easier if you'd only been a witch."

Excerpted from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon Copyright © 1991 by Diana Gabaldon. Excerpted by permission of Dell, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Read the reviews!

“Absorbing and heartwarming…lavishly evokes the land and lore of Scotland.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Stunning!”

—Los Angeles Daily News

“It is a large canvas that Gabaldon paints, filled with strong passions and derring-do. Strong willed and sensual, Claire is an engaging modern heroine plopped down in a simpler, more primitive time…. Great fun …marvelous and fantastic adventures, romance, sex …perfect escape reading!”

—San Francisco Chronicle

PURCHASE OUTLANDER BY DIANA GABALDON BY CLICKING HERE! ALSO AVAILABLE IN A KINDLE EDITION WITH BONUS CONTENT!

Diana Gabaldon is the author of the award-winning, #1 NYT-bestselling OUTLANDER novels, described by Salon magazine as “the smartest historical sci-fi adventure-romance story ever written by a science Ph.D. with a background in scripting “Scrooge McDuck” comics.”


The adventure began in 1991 with the classic OUTLANDER (“historical fiction with a Moebius twist”), has continued through six more New York Times-bestselling novels–DRAGONFLY IN AMBER, VOYAGER, DRUMS OF AUTUMN, THE FIERY CROSS, A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES, and AN ECHO IN THE BONE, with nineteen million copies in print worldwide.


The series is published in 26 countries and 23 languages, and includes a nonfiction (well, relatively) companion volume, THE OUTLANDISH COMPANION, which provides details on the settings, background, characters, research, and writing of the novels. Gabaldon (it’s pronounced “GAA-bull-dohn”—rhymes with “stone”) has also written several books in a sub-series featuring Lord John Grey (a major minor character from the main series): LORD JOHN AND THE PRIVATE MATTER, LORD JOHN AND THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE BLADE, and LORD JOHN AND THE HAND OF DEVILS. Another Lord John book, LORD JOHN AND THE SCOTTISH PRISONER, will probably be published in 2011).


Returning to her comic-book roots, she has also written a graphic novel titled THE EXILE (set within the OUTLANDER universe and featuring the main characters from OUTLANDER), but told from the viewpoint of Jamie Fraser and his godfather, Murtagh. The graphic novel is illustrated by Hoang Nguyen, published by Del-Rey.


Gabaldon is presently working on the third Lord John novel (LORD JOHN AND THE SCOTTISH PRISONER), and the eighth book in the OUTLANDER series. In addition, she is working on a contemporary mystery series, set in Phoenix, and has written Highly Scholarly Introductions (with masses of footnotes) to recent Modern Library editions of Sir Walter Scott’s IVANHOE and Thomas Paine’s COMMON SENSE.


Dr. Gabaldon holds three degrees in science: Zoology, Marine Biology, and Quantitative Behavioral Ecology, (plus an honorary degree as Doctor of Humane Letters, which entitles her to be “Diana Gabaldon, Ph.D., D.H.L.” She supposes this is better than “Diana Gabaldon, Phd.X,”) and spent a dozen years as a university professor with an expertise in scientific computation before beginning to write fiction. She has written scientific articles and textbooks, worked as a contributing editor on the MacMillan ENCYCLOPEDIA OF COMPUTERS, founded the scientific-computation journal SCIENCE SOFTWARE QUARTERLY, and has written numerous comic-book scripts for Walt Disney. None of this has anything whatever to do with her novels, but there it is.


She and her husband, Douglas Watkins, have three adult children and live mostly in Scottsdale, Arizona.


You can visit Diana online at www.DianaGabaldon.com.

Spotlight: Amanda Wolfe, Author of Beneath the Silver Lining Trilogy: Secrets of the Black Box

On the outside, her family appeared to be one big, happy family. Their house, with her parents, three sisters, and two brothers, was the epitome of a simple yet fulfilling life lived in a small town. But as the author would soon discover, her childhood was in fact a nightmarish phase of her life she would always be running from. Growing up as a carefree girl, Wolfe struggled to comprehend why she was reared in a family where children are deprived of their right to know the truth, adults are always right, and smoothing out a misunderstanding is never an option.

At the young age of nine, she started experiencing cruelty at the hands of her father, who not only abused her emotionally, but physically and sexually as well. Her mother, whose love she sought, was a stern woman who refused to see her husband’s mistakes. As if her deeply troubled relationship with her parents was not enough, Wolfe also had to deal with inner secrets involving creepy characters from the afterlife. Feeling tormented, confused, solitary, and even filthy, this naïve girl had yet to be transformed into a strong-willed woman who would become cynical about love and learn to depend on no one but herself while facing more of life’s bitterness.

The first of a series of three, Beneath the Silver Lining Trilogy: Secrets of the Black Box chronicles the author’s journey along a perplexing road of growing up. It was originally written as a therapeutic way to heal her inner wounds and to let go of the pain and anger. However, it is now shared to bring inspiration to readers — especially women.

Read the Reviews!

"A book of total honesty and bravery. This is the story of an amazing woman and the courage she shows in the face of horrific circumstances. You will not only be shaken by the author's story of her childhood, you will also be moved by her unquenchable spirit. I can't wait for the second book in this trilogy!"
-June Mcleish

"This book documents a courageous effort to reveal the horrors of a secret and disturbing childhood endured by a young woman trapped in a dysfunctional family. Despite beatings and personal violations on numerous occasions, this young child makes a valiant effort to unravel the confusion, search for the truth and persevere with a positive outlook on life."

-M. Jacobs

Amanda Wolfe was born in Ottawa, Canada in the mid ‘60s. She matured at a very young age out of necessity growing up in unusual circumstances. She has always been a happy-go-lucky, carefree spirit and a very strong-willed person. She has done everything from waitressing to owning her own restaurant and selling things from Mary Kay cosmetics to real estate.


She is married to a wonderful man. They currently reside in the great state of Texas with their horses. When she is not at home writing her latest novel, you will find her and her husband flying in their plane and traveling the world together.

For more information on Amanda and her book visit http://www.beneaththesilverlining.com where you'll find an excerpt from Beneath the Silver Lining.

Author Spotlight: Martin Sharlow, Author of Shades of Twlight

Melissa has waited her whole life to move out and start her own. This is her first summer after graduating and now she has her own place and a job. Everything she wanted is starting to happen.

Until the accident.

When the most gorgeous guy she has ever seen saves her life, he also forever changes it. What do you do when you find out that life as you have always known it isn’t real, and the man you love is a vampire, out to save you from something worse?

Read the Excerpt!


The lights came back on in the theater, and still half the people hadn’t left yet. The first portion got up and left the moment the credits came up, but the rest sat in their seats and talked about everything they’d just watched. A few of the last people leaving let their eyes linger on Michael as they walked out, but most didn’t even seem to notice him any longer. I guess they were more wrapped up in their new world of vampires and werewolves. I couldn’t blame them, really. Bella’s world looked all romantic and fun. Somehow even with a horde of vampires trying to kill her, the movie seemed to make it a cool thing. I realized that, had I been Bella and that was my life, it wouldn’t seem so cool anymore. At the moment, though, it did. Her romanticized life seemed preferable to mine, and yet a part of me knew I wouldn’t leave mine right now even if it were possible.

I looked over at Michael to see him sitting there staring at me. I wondered what he was thinking, if he thought I was his Bella, or was he just amused that I had the need to escape into fantasy. I noticed a kernel of popcorn stuck on his shoulder, then one in his hair, and couldn’t help wonder how they got there.

“Are we done yet?” He asked with a bit of hope in his eyes. “Or are we going to go get another ticket and watch it again?”

He looked so adorable right now, just sitting there with popcorn in his hair. I wasn’t sure what it was or why he so appealed to me right then, but without thinking I found myself pressing my lips against his silky soft ones. His lips warmed to the touch of mine, as we kissed.


Read the Reviews!

"If you like a paranormal storyline with some mystery and a little romance thrown in, than you will enjoy Shades of Twilight."

--Acting Balanced

"I do recommend this story for those who enjoy vampires with mystery."

--Goodreads Reviewer

Martin Sharlow was always a storyteller. In his youth he used to play role playing games and usually he was the game master. That allowed him to create and modify stories and then tell them to his captive audience in the form of a game. Because of this and the many fantasy books he read, Martin went the next step and started writing fantasy novels.


Recently, however, Martin changed genres to vampire romance as he got bitten by the vampire bug. This happened after picking up one of the latest novels and finding himself hooked on it. Today Martin has written two vampire romance novels, and is in the process of writing many more.


Martin currently lives in Vancouver, WA with two of his three children, who help to keep him grounded in reality.


You can visit Martin Sharlow at http://www.wix.com/targoun/martin

PURCHASE A COPY OF SHADES OF TWILIGHT AT AMAZON.COM!

Author Spotlight: Katie Salidas and Immortalis: Hunters and Prey

Becoming a vampire saved Alyssa from death, but the price was high: the loss of everything and everyone attached to her mortal life. She’s still learning to cope when a surprise confrontation with Santino Vitale, the Acta Sanctorum’s most fearsome hunter, sends her fleeing back to the world she once knew, and Fallon, the friend she’s missed more than anything.

Alyssa breaks vampire law by revealing her new, true self to her old friend, a fact which causes strong division in the group that should support her most: her clan.

Worse yet, her revelation entangles Fallon in the struggle between vampires and hunters and The Acta Sanctorum is ready to attack again, with a new army of hybrid creations: the Frenzy Soldiers.

If Alyssa hopes to survive and keep her mortal friend safe, she’ll have to be willing to make a deal with the enemy, and regain her clan’s support. It will take everyone working together in a precarious truce to fight against the Acta Sanctorum’s new threat.

Book Information

ISBN: ISBN-13: 9780984419654

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Publisher: Publisher: Rising Sign Books

Publication Date: Pub. Date: December 2010

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Hunters-Prey-Immortalis-2-ebook/dp/B004DNWEGS/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=books&qid=1291063259&sr=8-5
Barnes and Noble:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Hunters-and-Prey/Katie-Salidas/e/9780984419654/?itm=4&USRI=katie+salidas
Smashwords:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/31078

Read the Reviews!

"...a book I could not put down..."

--Angelfirewithwings, Amazon Reviewer

"...if you're looking for an action packed paranormal book then you must buy this book. You won't be disappointed. I give this one a 5 out of 5 stars."

--GCRWanda, Amazon Reviewer

"What I appreciated in Book 2 of this trilogy is the growth of Alyssa's character and she continued to struggle with leaving her old life behind."

--Katrina Michaels, Amazon Reviewer

"I highly recommend this book for an afternoon of escapism. It is an engaging, fast paced, action packed read that will leave you wanting more!"

--Minerva T. Balaguer, Amazon Reviewer

Author of the hot new Urban Fantasy series, Immortalis, Katie has always had a desire to entertain. Since, early childhood, she’s dreamed up fantastical characters and scribbled them into pages of various journals and notebooks. Taking an interest in vampires at an early age, she devoured every book, featuring those mysterious, blood sucking creatures, in any genre she could find. She claims that, of all the monsters out there, vampires had always been the most interesting.


It was only natural that a love of reading about vampires, and a love of writing turned into a desire to write her own stories.

A Las Vegas native, having grown up in the famed City of Sin, Katie loves to feature it as a recurring setting for many of her stories.


Find Katie Salidas at www.risingsignbooks.com


Blog
http://myimmortalstories.blogspot.com/


Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/ksalidas?ref=profile


Facebook Author Fansite
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Katie-Salidas-Author/214780936916


Myspace
http://www.myspace.com/katelv

Author Spotlight: Joanne Troppello and Mr. Shipley's Governess

Sophie Baird is looking for a way to escape the painful reality of her parents' deaths. Unable to live in their home any longer, she takes a job as a live-in tutor to Anastasia Shipley to remove herself from her painful memories and the feeling that God has abandoned her.

Anastasia has an illness that has prevented her from ever attending school and makes her father, Sebastian, over protective.

When Sophie first meets Sebastian, she cannot deny the intense attraction she feels toward him. When an unexpected romance begins between them, she starts to rebuild her relationship with God, with the help of a certain little girl.

READ THE EXCERPT!

Sophie took a deep breath and knocked on the dark wooden door. She felt like Queen Esther trying to gain an audience with King Ahasuerus. A moment later, she heard Sebastian respond for her to enter.

He looked up from his work, and she thought she detected a look of surprise on his face.

“Is everything all right?” he asked.

“Yes, I was hoping I could talk to you for a moment, but if now’s not a good time, I can come back.”

“Forgive my manners.” Sebastian stood up and offered her a seat in front of the desk. “How did your morning go?”
“It went well. I guess I wanted to know what you’ll be expecting from me while I’m here.”

Sebastian’s eyebrows rose. “Well, to teach my daughter. I thought we established that.”

Sophie hurried to assure him. “Of course, I understand that part. I was curious what your involvement would be in regard to supervision of my teaching.”

He leaned back in the chair and stretched his arms over his head. “I see. I suppose you can think of me as an interested observer. I did check out your references, and I trust your experience with children. I won’t hinder your method of operation here, unless, of course, you decide to suggest a field trip on an African Safari.”

Sophie laughed, and Sebastian leaned his arms on the desk. “You find that amusing?”

“A little. You don’t have to worry about that right now. That’s part of the curriculum for next semester.” She saw him barely begin to smile, and spoke without thinking, “You’re very serious, Sebastian, aren’t you?”

She experienced regret right away, but Sebastian’s response alleviated repercussions from that slip of the tongue. “Actually, yes, I am, but I do have some sense of humor. I think you’ll be good for Ana, and I’m glad you’re here.”

Sophie took that as her exit cue. “Thank you for talking with me.”

“I hope I’ve cleared up any uncertainties in your mind.”

She started to walk out.

“Mrs. Andrews usually serves dinner around six o’clock. I hope you don’t mind, but I think it would be good for Ana if you eat with us, unless you have any objections.”
“Oh, that would be fine. I’ll see you later.”

WATCH THE TRAILER!





PURCHASE A COPY OF MR. SHIPLEY'S GOVERNESS HERE!

Published By: Wild Horse Press


Published: Nov 09, 2010

ISBN # 9781456350895

Word Count: 71,400

Genre: Inspirational romance

Price: $5.99

Available in: Adobe Acrobat, Palm DOC/iSolo, Microsoft Reader, Rocket

Joanne Troppello is a romantic suspense and inspirational romance author writing contemporary romance with a classic feel, Ms. Troppello is also a freelance writer / marketing consultant, located in Pennsylvania. She has two books published. Shadowed Remembrances is a mystery novel and Mr. Shipley's Governess is an inspirational romance novel, published through Wild Horse Press. She is contracted to work for several different companies, to write non-fiction, how-to articles each week. She also works as a freelance marketing consultant for a local medical organization and manages facebook and twitter accounts for different clients.

Ms. Troppello loves to write and read and spend time with her family.

Visit Joanne online at http://joannetroppello.weebly.com/.

Author Spotlight: Award-winning Inspirational Romance Author Wendy Davy

Today we are featuring the work of award-winning inspirational romance author Wendy Davy. She uses her active imagination and love of adventure to create faith based stories of the heart. When not writing or chasing around her young children, she spends time reading, enjoying her real-life hero and watching movies.

Federal Agent James Montgomery is used to getting what he wants. Right now, he wants to find out what Victoria Connor knows about her grandfather's illegal activities. Prepared to do whatever it takes, he plunges into her life with single-minded determination, intent on gaining the trust she is so reluctant to give. But, when his compassionate suspect challenges him to face the past that still haunts him, he discovers he has much more to learn from her than he first assumed.

PURCHASE A COPY OF A MATTER OF TRUST HERE!

Maggie Reynolds needs a place to hide. Drake's Retreat is the perfect solution. Nestled deep in the back country of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Drake Strong's couple's retreat is the ideal location for Maggie to regain control of her shattered life. But, convincing the intimidating resort owner to allow her to attend the retreat, without a partner, is the first of many obstacles she must overcome in the heart of the wilderness.


Drake Strong's responsibility to his guests includes keeping them safe from the dangers they may encounter at his retreat. When Maggie shows up alone and unprepared for his remote resort, his responsibility to her becomes much more personal than he had ever intended.


PURCHASE A COPY OF DRAKE'S RETREAT HERE!

Newspaper reporter, Cali Stevens, boldly walks into Sheriff Nick Justice’s office, with one goal in mind: To find her best friend who disappeared while vacationing. When the no-nonsense sheriff refuses to give her details of the investigation, Cali takes matters into her own hands and starts her own investigation. She never intends to fall for the sheriff…or into the clutches of the Coral Isle’s first serial kidnapper.


Coral Isle’s recent abductions give Nick Justice enough to worry about without adding any complications into the mix, and his attraction to Cali Stevens is definitely a complication. When Nick encourages Cali to leave the island, she refuses. Now he must manage to find the missing women while keeping Cali and the rest of the women on Coral Isle safe.


PURCHASE A COPY OF NIGHT WAVES HERE!

A blizzard brings them together…


A twist of fate threatens to tear them apart.

Seeking her father’s approval, ski patrol candidate, Isabelle Rollins, will stop at nothing to secure her place among the highly respected patrollers at Snowcap Resort, even if it means risking her life. When she becomes lost in a blizzard, she fights her way to the doorstep of a handsome stranger, only to discover he is the one man who can stand in the way of her dream.

Seeking refuge from his tragic past, Ski Patrol Director, Mitchell Donovan, prays his new environment will help his daughter heal and overcome her persistent nightmares. When a stranded woman shows up on his doorstep desperate to survive a raging blizzard, he brings her in from the cold and into his life, only to discover she's the one woman he has no business falling for.

PURCHASE A COPY OF SNOW ANGELS HERE!

COMING IN MARCH 2011!!!

Jordan Harrison no longer trusts relationships, so when her widowed mother is swept away by a handsome, wealthy architect, Jordan fears the hasty engagement will end in disaster. After all, how well can her mother know the guy after only a few months? Intent on saving her mother from certain heartbreak, Jordan races to Breckenridge Manor to delay the wedding, but runs into more than she’s bargained for—a handsome, understanding man intent on helping her heal past wounds and open her mind to new possibilities.


Known as the man with nerves of steel, Tanner Breckenridge lives up to his reputation, but it doesn’t take long for him to discover he has a soft spot for Jordan Harrison, the daughter of his father’s future bride. Loyal to his father, but captivated by Jordan, Tanner puts his heart on the line and risks everything for a chance at love.


You can visit Wendy online at http://www.wendydavy.com/ and follower her on Facebook!

Wendy's books are also available in electronic format. Visit her page at the White Rose Publishing website at http://www.whiterosepublishing.com/Wendy-Davy-493?page=1

Author Spotlight: Saying Goodbye Edited by Mike O'Mary and Julie Rember

Saying Goodbye: to the people, places, and things in our lives is a collection of true stories about saying goodbye to the people, places and things in our lives. This is a powerful book that includes a number of sad stories, as well as some very funny ones. Taken together, the stories serve as amazing examples of people saying heartfelt goodbyes with grace, dignity, and good humor.

Saying Goodbye includes stories contributed by thirty-one authors from the United States, Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. These stories show that there is sadness in goodbyes, but there is also irony and humor. It s perfect for book groups that want stimulating conversations about saying goodbye a topic that touches us all in one way or another.

Saying Goodbye is the first anthology from book publisher Dream of Things in a new series intended to fill the gap between popular anthologies of stories that are “short and sweet” (sometimes so saccharine-sweet they are hard to swallow) and the Best American Essays series, which are much longer. Instead of short and sweet, Dream of Things anthologies are intended to be short and deep.

Read the excerpt!

Foreword from Saying Goodbye

When my daughter was five, her great-grandfather died. At the funeral, I read a story about him, and his two sons-in-law each said a few heartfelt words.

After the last person spoke, my daughter, who was sitting in the front row next to her grandmother, stood up in her chair, turned around to face the room full of mourners, and said, “Is that it?”

That moment sticks with me because it shows that in the midst of the most solemn of goodbyes, there is sadness, yes. But there is also irony and humor and in some strange way, a sense of continuity. So it is, I believe, with all goodbyes.

Years later, Stephen Parrish, author of The Tavernier Stones, sent me a story called “Bridget.” I had just launched Dream of Things with the intent of publishing anthologies of creative nonfiction that will fill the gap between popular anthologies that publish stories I regard as “short and sweet” (sometimes so saccharin-sweet they are hard to swallow), and the Best American Essays series, which I love, but which are longer-form and more challenging to digest. So the goal for Dream of Things anthologies is to be not short and sweet, but short and deep. With depth comes authenticity. The result is stories that are easier to swallow because they are authentic, and easier to digest because they average 1,250 words in length.

Stephen Parrish’s story fit the bill…short and deep…but it didn’t fit neatly into any of the anthology topics that were in the works. So we created a new anthology—a collection of stories about saying goodbye. The topic struck a chord, and the stories came pouring in from around the world…from the United States, Canada, Ireland, Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere. The result is this book—a remarkable collection of stories, and the first of what I hope will be many anthologies from Dream of Things.

I say these stories are remarkable not just because of the quality of the writing and the subject matter, but also because a remarkable thing happened as I read them. I cried at sad stories and laughed at funny ones…that was no surprise. But I also learned valuable lessons about how people say goodbye—sometimes under the most difficult of circumstances. I learned because the authors who contributed to this collection were unflinchingly open and honest when it came to sharing very personal stories about how they and their loved ones say goodbye. It was a lesson that has better prepared me for whatever the future may hold. Thanks to the authors and their beautiful stories about saying goodbye to family members, relationships, jobs, pets, old homes, couches, jogging suits, the past, and other things, I will be better at saying goodbye in my life whenever the time comes. You will be, too.

I hope you enjoy these stories. Goodbye—for now.

Mike O’Mary, Series Editor

Read the reviews!

"Tender perspectives helping readers with their own goodbyes. If you have ever had to deal with loss, read this book. It will make you feel better." --Christina Johns, Midwest Book Review

"The stories are about love, really, not sadness. Despite all the sadness and grief that come with saying goodbye, there is love and joy and comedy on the Other Side."

--Gretchen Little, squidoo.com

"Couches, marriages, loyal dogs, husbands, fathers, and more. Saying Goodbye is put together well, for a freshman anthology effort from Julie Rember and Mike O'Mary."

--Book Nook Club

"This powerful book includes a number of sad stories, some very funny ones, and others that mix joy with sorrow. Taken together,they serve as amazing examples of people saying heartfelt goodbyes with grace, dignity, and good humor.”

--Bright Ideas




Mike O’Mary is series editor of the Dream of Things anthologies including Saying Goodbye, an anthology of true stories about people saying goodbye to the people, places and things in our lives with grace, dignity and good humor. He is founder of Dream of Things, a book publisher and online retailer. He is also author of The Note, a book about the power of appreciation, and Wise Men and Other Stories, a collection of holiday-related essays.

Julie Rember is editor of the Saying Goodbye anthology from Dream of Things. She has been a newspaper reporter and editor, front desk manager at an Idaho resort, high school drama teacher, and, for the past six years, a freelance technical writer and editor. She also teaches workshops for writers on giving successful readings.

For more information, visit www.goodbyebook.com.

Author Spotlight: Daniella by JoAnn Carter (Encouraging faith though fiction)

When Harrison Beckman meets his father’s secretary, Daniella Duncan, she’s shy and self-conscious. Harrison, however, is determined to get to know her better. Before he gets to do that a rival comes along to steal Dani’s heart as quickly and thoroughly as the company’s contracts, which have been disappearing.

As the mystery unfolds, Harrison has to fight for the woman he loves, even though this means crossing swords with his father and his determined adversary. Will Harrison be able to find the love that could await them or will it be too late?

Author's note:  While in the middle of writing this story, I heard the song MIRROR MIRROR by Barlow Girl on the radio. As I listened to the lyrics, it hit me how many women like Dani, (the heroine in DANIELLA) struggles with self-image.


As the plot develops, and Dani comes to the realization God loves her the way he made her. I had to be honest and ask myself, "Do I believe that?" It’s easy for me to nod my head while I’m writing this, but it’s another story when I’m standing in one of those dinky changing rooms try to find a bathing suit for the summer!

Accepting myself is sometimes is a daily struggle. In the same way this story has challenged me, as you experience Dani growth reading this book, it’s my prayer that it will draw you closer to God as well. (If you’d like to hear Mirror Mirror, click onto this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZgq8pA-ipY&feature=related )

Read the excerpt!

Harrison took the folder from her extended hand. Her hand seemed so small, and he had the strangest desire to protect her from whatever inner battle she was fighting. "I’m sorry. I know you’ve been with our advertising firm for quite a while now, but until today, I’ve never met you." He added with a smile, "Forgive me, I’m horrible with names. What’s yours again?"

Her eyes grew wide. With a nervous catch, she said, "Daniella Duncan."

"I like that name. May I call you Daniella?"

She shrugged. "Everybody calls me Dani."

"I think I prefer Daniella." Still studying her face, Harrison added, "Somehow, Dani doesn’t seem to fit you."

"Oh, Dani fits me all right. It sounds short and fat." Her hand clamped over her mouth, and her eyes grew even wider. Harrison’s heart nearly broke when she asked, "Did I really say that out loud?"

It had been drilled into his head since he was a boy never to talk to women about two things: their age and their weight. Now, what should he do with this hanging hot potato? Ignore it. "I didn’t hear anything if you didn’t." He tried to continue with the previous introductions. "Everyone calls my father Mr. Beckman, so I go by Harrison."

"Okay. I’ll try to remember that." Daniella seemed to have reached her limit; she looked like a cat being chased by a mouse, desperate for escape.
"Um, I really need to get back now, so..."

"Sure. Thanks again." Harrison didn’t even know if she heard him as she turned and left with quick steps.

He stood quietly by his door and listened to the clickety-clack sound Daniella’s shoes made on the linoleum fade into a soft pitter-patter as she retreated down the hallway. He shut his door while contemplating the strange woman who was just in his office. Pretty but strange...yes, definitely strange. Finally, he shrugged his shoulders and went back to the tasks at hand.

Free discussion questions here: http://www.whiterosepublishing.com/discussion_Q/DQ_Daniella.pdf

Price: $3.50 (Special sale for 25% off of this price if you purchase Smuggler of the Heart. See purchase link below for details.)


Purchase link: http://www.whiterosepublishing.com/Daniella

Visit JoAnn's Web site at http://home.comcast.net/~jo.glenncarter/site/

Connect with JoAnn on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/JoAnnDavisCarter

JoAnn Carter lives in Vermont with her wonderful husband of 18 years, four children and Ginger, the best dog in the world. She enjoys being with her family & friends, writing, reading, and cooking.


In the past JoAnn has worked as a Licensed Practical Nurse, an apple orchard guide and as a substitute teacher. She is available for speaking engagements to book clubs, reader groups, library groups, women's ministry events, school events and church retreats.


Her next book, The Floating Palace, will be released July 15th through Desert Breeze Publishing. You can access the book trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDcuTF8v9bg.

JoAnn Carter...Encouraging faith through fiction

Seasonal Reading from MuseItUp Publishing!

Not ready to let the holidays go? I'm sure not. Here are a couple of quick seasonal reads that might just hit the spot.

Santa is a Lady by L.J. Holmes

Genre: Sweet Romance--Seasonal
Page count: 89

ISBN e-book: 978-1-926931-06-7

Price: $4.50

Christmas Miracles: Santa is a Lady - Book One in the series

Angie is someone who has had to walk through the fires of hell and battle with death itself to regain the use of her nearly shattered body. It’s Christmas, the time of wonder and magic for Angie, Cam a man who has spent the past nearly two years trying to pry his precious daughter from the unscrupulous hands of his late wife’s greedy Iraqi brother’s, and Jo, the precious daughter, who is finally free and in her father’s awed hands. Three people and one Christmas with so much magic swirling at last in their direction.

Read the excerpt!

He didn’t look to the left; he didn’t look to the right; he made a direct beeline for Santa’s North Pole Throne and Angie’s vulnerable lap.

It had already been an eventful day. Although Angie knew when she did it, it was probably a petty thing to do, she arrived at eight o’clock, not the earlier seven-thirty Beck had commanded the night before. It had given Angie a fleeting moment of righteous tit for tat pleasure. Of course, Beck had not been the least bit amused and had shown her annoyance in the manner she helped Angie get into her Santa disguise.

Angie turned a deaf ear to Beck’s litany of complaints, but by the time the doors actually opened, Angie’s body felt a bit tender from Beck’s “loving” ministrations and her limp seemed a bit more pronounced as she made her way to the North Pole Throne and another day locked into Santa cheer.

The doors opened onto a stream of Santa fans that had been lined up in the cold that formed a queue from Santa’s throne to the door. Many had brought digital cameras demanding Santa and their cherubs pose this way and that. Santa felt old before her time by the half hour mark.

The line worked its way down as the minutes moved on. The cash registers’ ka-chings had also gradually filtered, in Angie’s mind, blessedly into silence as the store emptied of Beck’s sainted customers.

Into that silence, though, he vaulted.

Known throughout all of Northeringale and twelve of the fourteen surrounding townships, Julian Harper arrived. Some people looked at Julian and saw an adorable though outrageously precocious scamp. Angie knew better. She’d babysat Julian once, almost a year ago, and had yet to fully recover from the experience. He was, to put it kindly, the proverbial bull-in-the-china-shop. Nothing he did was done by half measures including lurching up onto Santa’s lap where he landed with an inhuman thud.

Angie’s hip screamed out a chorale of yelps and she had to force her lips not to give voice to the silent screams within her. Biting down on waves of rippling agony Angie spouted her usual, “What can Santa bring for you, my fine boy?” spiel.

Julian Harper’s repertoire didn’t consist of sitting still either. Angie looked around frantically for the boy’s mother. And wondered why she’d allowed him to come into Sweets and Treats without her. No doubt to get her own reprieve from the little hellion, Angie thought sourly.

Julian Harper boosted himself up into a standing position so he could stretch over Santa and check out the long fall of Santa curls running down Angie’s back, catching his grubby paws in the acrylic locks. His fingers, sticky from whatever he’d had in them before coming into Sweets and Treats became ensnarled in the phony mane literally handcuffing Julian’s hands and the wig together.

Using his feet, Julian kicked out to get leverage, then jabbed, and jumped all over Angie’s lap trying to free himself from his captivity while screeching right in her ears at the top of his lungs. Angie, sensing the approaching disaster screamed for Beck to come and prevent the serious trouble about to fall upon them. Just as she screamed, though, Julian’s booted foot bulls-eyed down on Angie’s already battered hip. Another scream, this one loudly vocal and crammed with Angie’s suffering rent the air.

Beck reached the wildly out of control Julian and pulled him and Santa’s wig away from Angie in one powerful sweep.

Julian, his paws filled with the fake Santa hair, stared at Angie’s hairless Santa and began squealing, “Santa’s a fake” over and over again loud enough to wake the dead. He also began wriggling frantically in Beck’s hold, but she held onto him for dear life carting him into the back of the store where the bathroom waited to get his grubby hands free from Santa’s wig.
 
PURCHASE A COPY HERE!
 

The Boys Upstairs by Jane Lebak


Genre: Seasonal Christmas
Pages: 87

Price: $4.50

ISBN: 978-1-926931-12-8

Warning: Limited violence, sexual content, or language

Jay Farrell, a crippled priest, has begun housing homeless boys in his rectory. Once a street kid himself, he was riding the rocket-train to a lifetime in prison until the day he drove over a land mine in Iraq. Today he works at an inner-city parish, running a soup kitchen and struggling to manage an impoverished church.

With temperatures below zero and falling a few nights before Christmas, Jay's estranged brother Kevin dumps three more children on his front porch. Kevin, a cop who can't believe in God after all the evil he's seen, hasn't spoken to Jay in years, but he knows Jay will at least give the kids a place to stay. It isn't over yet, though. As they work together to meet the children's needs, they must confront the long-buried emotions that have divided them so long.
The Boys Upstairs examines the real gift of the holiday season and how hope can transform the ones society condemns as not worth saving.

Read the excerpt! 

Kevin pulled his duffle bag from his locker. The belt weighted down his waist, but he didn't remove it. He took off his shirt, removed his bullet-proof vest, replaced his shirt, and then grabbed his jacket.

Christmas songs. Christmas lights. Christmas trees. Only a little longer until the gifts were exchanged (both with one another and at the stores) and the trees went to the curbside. The songs would play for a few more days, and then it would be over. Red and pink would go up for Valentine's Day, and the world would go back to normal. Christmas was only one day, but it had expanded to fill an entire sixth of the year.

Two years ago, Kevin had been joking with his then-partner in the patrol car when they'd gotten a call for a domestic. Routine for Christmas Eve—unfortunately, domestic violence rocketed around town like Santa on his sleigh at Christmas time. Always disgusting, but the character of the holiday threw the violence into sharper relief. Men beating their wives because they'd cooked the turkey wrong: joy to the world.

Kevin and his partner were just finishing up when they got a call about a car accident. They responded with sirens screaming, racing down the centerline of the boulevard as cars dived to the curbs. He arrived to find two cars mangled together like lovers shot by a jealous husband. A Ford Taurus on its back, the side caved in, and a Camry impacted so hard on the driver's side it was bent like an L. A third sedan, make and model unidentifiable, had its engine in the front seat, smashed head-on into a wall.

Running through the glass shards that crunched like ice beneath his steel-toed shoes, Kevin went to the Camry and shone his flashlight through the shatter-frosted window to see there was no way to help this woman. His partner checked the flipped Taurus, and again, nothing.

Kevin would have bet the house drugs were involved. Instead, the autopsy results came back clean. Just a driver racing to the mall.
Jobs that should never be done: calling the coroner on Christmas Eve. More than that: being the one to contact a dead driver's family the night before Christmas. He'd managed to secure the contents of one car for the family so they'd have at least this final Christmas gift.

Such a senseless crash, an act of stupid haste and three lives snuffed like a smoldering candle. Kevin would remember forever crunching up two icy steps on a wooden porch entwined with blinking white lights, a push of the doorbell, and the terror flashing across a middle-aged woman's face as she opened the door to a police officer. "Are you Mrs. Sherry Daniels?"

What more do you say after that? How do you make the unbearable able to be borne?

Next November, Kevin recoiled the first time he saw porches adorned with blinking white lights. It took two weeks to figure out why. He went to the Daniels family's house on Christmas Eve that year—no blinking lights, not then—carrying a plant and a sympathy card. They weren't home, so Kevin left them on the steps. This year he wouldn't go at all. He'd mentally kicked himself over and over for not considering the mother's reaction if she'd been there, if she'd seen him on a second Christmas Eve.

He never came bringing tidings of great joy, that's for sure. That was why everyone in the city either hated the cops or feared them. Kevin looked at himself in the mirror some mornings and thought, That's me. Someone to be hated and feared.

As he put his cap back into his locker, Kevin caught sight of the metal inside the brim, or rather the medal. Jay had given it to him when he'd entered the police academy, insisted he pin it somewhere on the uniform, and a lot of cops had the same one. A medal of Saint Michael. Kevin knew from the wings that Michael was an angel, not why he would be the patron of police officers. Do you ever manage to do any good, he thought to the angel figure, or does everyone hate and fear you too?

That was something Jay maybe understood, if Kevin ever felt like asking. Although Kevin couldn't say for certain, he figured priests too must be hated and feared. Feared as if they were judges or magicians, hated because they represented the Church and everything it stood for in the minds of everyone on Earth. Like the police, priests were meant to be trusted, access to a law higher than the citizenry, and so often unable to enforce a damned thing. Jay couldn't stop a man from sinning, and Kevin couldn't stop a young woman from dying on Christmas Eve.

He slammed his locker and sighed.

One of the other guys looked up. "Long night?"

"I hate Christmas."

"Ho ho ho. Merry paperwork." The guy laughed, but Kevin only left the locker room to head for home.

Thirty minutes later, Kevin walked into his apartment. Half an hour driving, listening to talk radio in his car, and watching the digital clock during light cycles. He locked away his gun and set aside his uniform. In front of the TV he flipped channels until he found a movie with lots of explosions, then left it running in the background as he changed into flannel pajama pants and grabbed a bag of chips. The recliner creaked as he settled himself. He checked his voicemail, one message.

Dad's scratchy voice: "I didn’t want to call later, in case you're sleeping."

Kevin rolled his eyes. I'm on a night tour, Dad—figure it out.
"I wasn't sure what your off days would be for the rest of the week. They've got a full schedule for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so I may not be able to catch you over the holiday. If I don't get a chance to talk to you, have a merry Christmas."

"You too," Kevin said to the voicemail. "You and five hundred other retirees in a gated Florida community." He leaned back in front of the TV set. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
The movie was boring, loud, and predictable. Kevin woke up an hour later to find it had already ended. He shut off the set and dragged himself to bed. Two more days until Christmas.

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