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Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Blog Tour: The Winter Riddle



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Fantasy (Humorous)
Date Published: 1 November 2018

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Publisher: Black Spot Books (https://blackspotbooks.com)


When destiny calls on the Winter Witch to save the North Pole, will she pretend she’s not in?

Once upon a time, the North Pole was a very noisy place. A kingdom cowered under the maniacal rule of the White Queen, The Vikings raided and pillaged as they were wont to do, and the Winter Witch avoided talking to any of them.

When her peace and quiet are obliterated by threats of war and Ragnarok, she’ll try anything to get them back. When casting spells to become nearly invisible and dealing with otherworldly powers fail, the Winter Witch needs to forge an alliance with Santa—a retired warrior who’s anything but jolly—to save the North Pole from calamity.

Will the Vikings take up arms against the frost giants? Will an evil necromancer keep the kingdom in the grip of fear? And for the love of Christmas, will everyone who isn’t the Winter Witch please stop meddling with dark forces beyond mortal comprehension for a bit?

Deck the halls and bar the doors! We’re in for a long winter’s night.



Excerpt

Santa’s Village

The high timber walls around Santa’s Village were covered in permafrost, which served to reinforce them as well as help them blend in with the surrounding countryside. However, it was doubtful that the camouflage was considered very important, given the constant noise of the place and occasional explosions or gouts of flame shooting up into the autumn gloom, like a war zone that had decided to retire somewhere snowy.
What had appeared from a distance to be a pair of great coal lamps standing on opposite sides of the main gate turned out to be something altogether less ordinary. Atop the wooden pedestals, which were banded with iron and twice Volgha’s height, stood what appeared to be diminutive winged persons made entirely of brilliant golden light. The lamps were capped with great glass domes and no frost had gathered on them. Perhaps they were newly installed and hadn’t had the opportunity to frost over yet.
The wolves dragged the twisted wreckage in front of the gate and started howling. That was unexpected. Volgha stood there, in the light of the golden lamps, realizing that she’d not decided exactly how she was going to reprimand this inconsiderate lout. She wanted to do her witchy duty, of course, but her natural distaste for people was rearing its introverted head.
The next unexpected thing to happen was the gate opening, just wide enough for the wolves to start moving through single file, which they did. Someone had just opened the gate to let a bunch of howling wolves come into the village. Non-standard behavior for villagers, to say the least.
The gate closed behind them, and Volgha was alone. Gritting her teeth, she suppressed the urge to simply rise up into the sky and have done with the whole thing. How would that look? She had to avoid giving him the idea that she was the sort of neighbor who always had cups of sugar to lend.
“Hello?”
The voice had come from within the walls. A wide-and-short portal opened in the gate, and there was a pair of eyes on the other side of it, looking at her.
“Hello,” said Volgha, her mind suddenly going entirely blank.
“I want to speak to Santa,” she said. “He lives here.” She stood there silently, though she was mentally shouting the same swear word over and over, chastising herself for not having said something cooler.
“Who shall I tell him is calling?”
“Volgha, the Winter Witch,” she replied. “And be quick, I do not appreciate being made to wait!”
That was more like it. It was the sort of “listen here, you” talk that made people act without thinking too much about it.
The tiny portal slammed shut. There was some excited chatter on the other side of the gate, which had the general air of several people scrambling to avoid being turned into undesirable things. That was a pleasant sound to Volgha, one she didn’t feel she heard often enough.
After a few more seconds the gate swung slowly inward, and there stood a very short man in a woolen cloak and a pointy green hat. Not a man, she corrected herself, an elf. That was further cause to assume that Santa was the only non-elf living in the village; otherwise, guarding an enormous gate would be an odd duty for someone so small.

“Welcome to Santa’s Village,” he said with a smile and a flourish. “Won’t you come in?”


About the Author

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Sam Hooker writes darkly humorous fantasy. He is an entirely serious person, regardless of what you may have heard. Originally from Texas, he now resides in southern California with his wife, son, and dog.





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Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Blog Tour: Citadel


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Women’s literary fiction
Publisher: Quartet Global Books

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Irven DeVore, an evolutionary biologist, writes that "Males are a breeding experiment run by females."  What if, in fact, women ran everything?  What if women rejected the culture of rape and violence to take control of their lives in the safety of the Citadels? What if women could exist without males? CITADEL is a metafictional, apocalyptic story braided into a contemporary post-lesbian novel built on genetics.




Advance Praise

"I loved the book and I'm suggesting it to all the writers, editors and women I know as a must read. You blew me away... the book drew me in completely... great experience! 
 I'm not sure how you managed to come up with this... let alone research it... a story usually follows one or two Characters... I found myself following the writer, the editor, the publisher, not to mention the Characters in the book... and never got lost, never ended up wondering who someone was or why they did that? I read the book in short spurts and longer chunks depending on opportunity... but never had a problem of falling back into the story... you had me from page one to the end. Great job"  -- Wally Lane, filmmaker, screenwriter.



Excerpt

Beach Meat

Trisha

As far back as I can remember, I’ve had a sense of dread. I dream, and when I wake, I am sure it will be the day the world ends. Rose, my therapist, tells me more of her clients have apocalyptic dreams like mine. She doesn’t know what it means.
Yesterday at the beach as I watched the beach meat in their combat ritual, I had one of my visions of annihilation. There were four of them. Their sandy bodies glistened. Muscle and sweaty flesh silhouetted in an exploding sunset ripe with blood. Their overhand smashes and digs were laced with grunts and howls and the wail of loss. I
imagined them still grinding one another to dust in the chaos of extinction. The shaven-headed one, the tall, muscular and vicious one spiked a set-up and the volleyball blasted his opponent in the face and he went down—on his back, on the sand. Bleeding. The fallen enemy crawled off the pitch, his shamed partner beside him. Mr. V., the
Victor, taunted the losers ‘you bunch of pansy asses.’
Daiva startled me when she lay back on her towel
groaning. I asked her if she was all right.

“I’m a day early,” she said. “Should know better than to wear white. What did I miss?”
“A little blood. One good spike.”

Daiva wore a white one-piece suit. Hair bound up in a twist with a swan-comb. The setting sun burnished her hair.
I was going back to my ereader when Mr. V. knelt in the sand at my feet. I smeeled his sweat mixed with sea air and the odor of blood. It was the familiar scent of death and destruction that often crept into my dreams. Rose tells me
that I have parosmia, a flaw in my brain that makes me smell odors that are not real. The scent pouring off Mr. V. was the scent that followed men like angry dogs chasing a wounded doe. He grasped the bloody volleyball against his crotch. Eyes closed, Daiva piped up,
“Are they all this tall?”
“It’s an optical illusion,” I said. “At sunset they seem
taller.”
“Do you suppose he shaves everywhere?”
“That teeny-weeny crotch cloth won’t hide a single
pube.”
“Tell him to stand up and strip off that speedo,” Daiva
said.
“Hey,” Mr. V. said. “I’m right here.”
“We can smell you,” Daiva replied.
Mr. V. His eyes were deep wolf-gray, his mouth a
pouty delicacy. I had tasted meat like that but never this
one. He was persistent, and he didn’t back off as I scanned
him. He liked the assessment so much he quivered. Silent.
A horse at auction waiting a bid. His eyes tracked me up
and down never veering above my breasts. Beach meat.
Muscle and sand and blood and sweat. I had seen him
before, but he always failed the wine test. I said,
“What do you think of the 2025 Napa pressing of Pinot
Picante?”
He got that what-the-fuck-are-you-talking-about scowl
on his face.
“Wine,” I said. “Pinot Picante.”
“Oh, yeah, I had that a few times.”
Pinot Picante did not exist, so I went back to my
ereader. Clara was hounding me to finish the next Pinnacle
Romance. She wanted it edited and online now. Today. Not
tomorrow. Mr. V. said,
“Hey, I kicked butt out there.”
“Yes you did,” Daiva said, “but we’re having our
periods.”
Mr. V shot to his feet, bloodstained volleyball in his
hands. Disgusted, he trotted off into the surf. The sunset
was so intense, so red, the light seemed to burn through
him. Daiva said,


“RER.” “What’s that?”
“Residual evolutionary response,” Daiva replied. “The Alpha male can’t tolerate things he can’t control and menses is our big mystery. Irven DeVore says males are a breeding experiment run by females. This guy has all the traits breeders cue on—muscles, physical presence, drive, power. He responds to the stimulus, in this case your breasts, your hips and thighs, your skin. The entire history
of sexual selection is working itself out right here on this beach, Trisha. You’re a prime receptacle. You’re supposed to dive into bed with him, but you said no, so he’ll have to kill you.”
Mr. V., rising out of the sea, glistened. Golden. His thighs rippled. He was a glorious animal so locked into himself that a bloody tampon shut him down…you said no so he’ll have to kill you. I shuddered. What if I had taken him home? What if he did kill me?
I watched Mr. V. dash to the parking lot where he jumped into a black BMW.
“He drives a Beamer,” Daiva said. “Beamer means resources and resources fill out the evolutionary menu. Size, speed, resources. Why didn’t you take him up on it?”
“I have a few rules,” I said. “If they can walk, I look. If they can talk, I listen. If they make me laugh, I think about it. If they know good wine, I sometimes say yes.”
“That’s kind of picky. Why do you hunt here then?” “You can see the merchandise unwrapped.”
“You sure make those guys howl.” “Howl? Let’s head back.”
I rolled my beach towel and tucked it into my bag.
Daiva followed. The hot sand felt good on my feet as we
passed the volleyball court with its saga of blood and
sweat. At the parking lot, I tossed my bag into the Z-Ray.
The afternoon sun gilded Daiva’s hair now. She was a real
blonde. You can tell. Her skin was peachy and shone from
the sunblock. She had indigo blue eyes.
Daiva had moved into the condo two weeks ago. She


was always alone. No visitors. Her Southern California unenhanced trim and creamy skin made me jealous. The one thing that bothered me was the solitude. In two weeks, no one. I knew her name, Daiva Izokaitis, and I knew from her mail box that she was a doctor.
The drive through Latimer Canyon is idyllic in the early evening. Late gulls squawk, eucalyptus shadows stretch across the winding road, the Z Ray hisses on the pavement like a very beautiful red python. I love the car. I parked in my slot at the condo on Mesa Drive.
“Got time for a glass of Chardonnay?”
“I was going to ask you—I need to wash off the yuck
first only my plumbing is out until Monday.”
“Sure, you can shower at my place.”


About the Author


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Jack Remick is the author of twenty books—novels, poetry, short stories, screenplays. He co-authored The Weekend Novelist Writes a Mystery with Robert J. Ray. His novel Gabriela and The Widow was a finalist for the Montaigne Medal as well as a finalist in Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year Award. He reviews for the New York Journal of Books. He is a frequent guest and co-host on Michigan Avenue Media with Marsha Casper Cook. His novel Citadel, was featured in the July issue of the Australian magazine eYs.


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Monday, October 29, 2018

Blog Tour: Silent Whispers


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Non-Fiction
Date Published: January 7, 2018

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When Tami Urbanek began working with the public as a medium, she never envisioned how her path would change. Moving beyond working with people's spirit guides, deceased children began arriving to share their own shocking experiences. These children revealed the horrific torture and government scientific experiments that ultimately led to their death. With a heavy heart, Tami listened to their stories and helped them to feel loved and safe in order to cross over to the other side. Tami, along with two other women, began traveling to different locations, within the United States, to assist deceased children who were caught in a cycle of pain. Little did they know they would eventually begin attracting the attention of extraterrestrials. It became obvious the ETs were also invested in the experiments and they would attempt to thwart the efforts of these three women. Silent Whispers will challenge readers' belief system and perhaps lead them to question the reality that surrounds them.



Excerpt

“How did they get you?”
“I was walking home alone at night after a party. They stopped to give me a ride and I said yes.”
He showed me a black van stopping to pick him up in what appeared to be an affluent neighborhood. It was 1989, somewhere in California.
“You never went home…”
“No, but they made me call home once.”
“Why?”
“To mislead my parents. They thought I’d gone off the deep end.”
“Do you know how long you’d been there?”
“No.”
I wondered why he hadn’t moved on yet to the light when he answered my question.
“I don’t know anyone who would want to see me in the light, so I haven’t gone over.”
“I don’t know who, as far as family, would be in the light for you, but I know your guides can and will help you.”
“Them?”
He nodded to the other side of the room.
I looked over and saw two entities, their energy felt compassionate and gentle.
“Yes, I think so…”
“They try to talk to me to tell me to trust them,” he said.
“Do they ever try to force you or seem like they’re lying to you?”
“No.”
“Ask them how they can help you,” I said.
“They said it’s ok to love again and they’ll help me find peace.”
He continued, “Thank you for not judging me.”



About the Author

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Tami works with the public as a medium. She connects people with their spirit guides for life guidance and deep healing. On the side, she has many different paranormal experiences about which she writes and is working on her third book, a follow-up to Silent Whispers. For fun, Tami enjoys traveling, good food, and good wine. She and her family have lived in Colorado for most of her life.






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Sunday, October 28, 2018

Blog Tour: In the Key of Be


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Non-Fiction / Memoir
Date Published: April 2, 2018
Publisher:  Chatnoir Press

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Lena Hubin is a straight-A college senior when she lands in a psych ward. After her release, psychotherapy, illicit drugs, and sex distract her from her chronic anxiety--but none yields lasting relief. Despite teaching abroad, marrying, earning a masters and adopting two children, she remains haunted by anxiety. In her fifties, Lena returns with her family to the U.S., anticipating peace of mind. But when her son struggles with alcoholism, she feels her sanity swirling down the drain like the liquor she would dump--if she could find it. In a quest to help him, the author starts a journey that will change her life for good.


Excerpt

Prologue

The entry to the Wisconsin farmhouse of my 1950’s childhood was small and windowless. My dad’s barn overalls and our coats and jackets hung from wall hooks to the right and left. A door on the right opened into the kitchen. An assortment of boots lined the floorboards, where the edges of the linoleum were ragged: When Mom let Cookie, our black cocker spaniel, in during thunderstorms, the poor dog gnawed at the floor like a nail biter chews to the quick.
But anybody flapping through the screen door from outside couldn’t miss the huge map of the world on the wall straight ahead. My mother tacked the thing there, above a trunk—she, whose 1940 “normal school” yearbook proclaimed her goal to teach in Alaska; who, despite three kids and meager means, would earn a masters degree in education; who forever warbled “Those far-away places with the strange-sounding names/ are calling, calling me” as she cooked and washed and gardened.  
Mom never went to Alaska. Instead, she settled down with my dad on a small dairy farm and raised three daughters. Rarely venturing far from home, she taught in public schools nearby for forty years. The traveling was left to me. Today, our home office space is plastered with maps of the countries where my husband and I have lived.
My parents did well by their three daughters, providing us with pets, piano lessons, the opportunity to go to college, and the example of a steadfast relationship. The benefits have accompanied me through the years.  
But less favorable elements of my Midwest upbringing have also traveled with me. My folks’ need to beat back the Depression with hard work and little play; Mom’s efforts to control and perfect everything, especially me, her first-born—and thus my fear that I never could do well enough. These became burdens I hauled along like unwieldy bags whose contents, when unpacked, attacked me as anxiety. My guts churned; my teeth clenched; my shoulders sat high and tight. Hypochondria plagued me. My fear of flying worsened with each flight. 
I spent a decade self-medicating with alcohol, drugs, and sex before jumping off the continent. Eventually, in Africa, I met the man with whom I would enter a lasting relationship. We lived and worked together in exotic foreign places; we adopted a son from India, then a daughter from Madagascar. 
Through it all my angst persisted. After twenty years abroad, settled with my husband and kids in Arizona, I still longed for release from some vague perennial distress I could not name. 
For ten years more I squelched disquietude, until in 2009, a crisis threatened my sanity. Someone suggested a path, and in desperation, I took it.


 About the Author

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Lena Hubin has been writing since she was a young kid growing up on a small Wisconsin dairy farm. She has had essays and articles published in ISS Newslinks, The International Educator, Midwest Living, and The Sun. For four years she wrote quarterly book reviews for In Recovery Magazine. She has a masters degree in Creative Writing from California State University, Fresno. Lena writes, plays piano, teaches, and works for social justice in Prescott, Arizona, where she lives with her husband, dog, and cat.



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