Blog Tour: Behind Friendly Lines

Memoirs of a US Marine in Chile

Travel, Military, Religion, Personal Memoir

Date Published: November 4, 2019

Publisher Lucid Books

Behind Friendly Lines is the story of a US Marine officer serving as the only foreigner in the Chilean Marine Corps’ most important combat unit. Lieutenant Colonel Mark McGraw arrives with his young family to Chile full of optimism and certainty about his ability to navigate the obstacles of language, customs, and security, but quickly runs headlong into difficulties presented by a tragedy in the home, a commander initially hostile to Americans, and the isolation of his family’s inability to speak and understand Spanish. The author takes the reader far off the tourist’s beaten path on dangerous missions from the far-flung arid northern deserts to the frigid Straits of Magellan where he lived, trained, and suffered alongside the Chilean Marines. Behind Friendly Lines explores the challenge of recalibrating nearly every facet of a family’s existence while forging lifelong friendships and learning irreplaceable lessons.

What does it mean to serve your country while learning to love another one on the other side of the world? How does a family adjust to life in a new place and then find that they must adjust again to the place they always considered home? This memoir raises questions about the nature of nation, service, and belonging, while providing an honest view of American foreign policy decisions from a retired military officer.

Excerpt

By the end of day three we were exhausted, filthy, hungry, scratched, and bleeding from pushing through thorn bushes and walking on blistered feet. I started to suffer from edema. My hands and lower legs were starting to swell so much that I had to loosen my watch band a couple of notches. At one of the checkpoints, an officer from another unit whom I knew from riding the van into work together told me I looked disastrously depleted. We had the good fortune to pick up some MREs on the third day at a time when we badly needed calorie-dense food. In the darkness we huddled in the tree line beside the road to wolf down our vacuum-packed food. I could hear Victor suddenly spitting frantically. I shined a flashlight on him and asked him what was wrong. He had opened a package of peanuts and, mistaking the small white package of desiccant for salt since it was too dark to see the prominent “Do Not Eat” warning printed on the side, opened it too and mixed it with the peanuts. We couldn’t even catch a break sitting down to eat.

About the Author

Mark McGraw was born in Ft. Worth, Texas, grew up in Alexandria, Louisiana, and lived and worked in thirty-four countries during his twenty years of service as a U.S. Marine officer. He is a writer, translator, and language professor, having earned a master's degree in Modern Languages and a Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies from Texas A&M University. He has also translated Joseph Avski's Heart of Scorpio (Tiny Toe Press, 2012) and One Step from Juarez (Mouth feel Press, 2015).

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PROMO: Write a Book That Doesn't Suck

Non-Fiction

Date Published:  Hardcover November 30th

Your Book Might Suck…

But it doesn’t have to.

You are an awesome writer with an incredible fiction story the world needs to experience. But your book… well, it kind of sucks. So let’s fix that.

Setting your novel apart from the rest is a choice.

Fiction is more than a character doing stuff in a place you’ve invented. There are rules to magic and seasons to setting and double meanings to words, and a cadence to sentence structure if you want to write a book that doesn’t suck.

I guarantee you will find tricks and treats you’ve never heard or read before in any other writing book. If not, let me know and I’ll refund your money. But if I’m right, and my book helps you to write a novel that doesn’t suck, then I’m asking you, in return to leave a positive review. That’s fair, isn’t it?

Ready to get started? Great! There are questions with space to answer at the end of each chapter to help you along your journey. I’m super excited for you and wish you all the luck in writing your novel!

About the Author

Jaimie Engle writes fantasy thrillers for teens and tweens. Her anti-bullying message has reached tens of thousands of students throughout the US, and her books have hit #1 on the Amazon New Release List.  Before publishing her first novel, Jaimie danced at the Aloha Bowl halftime show, was an alien on Sea Quest, and modeled bikinis for Reef Brazil. When not writing books, screenplays, and comics, Jaimie can be found cosplaying at comic conventions. Learn more at www.theWRITEengle.com.

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Release Day: The Tragic + Divine

THE TRAGIC + DIVINE, Book 1

Young Adult Paranormal Romance

Published Date: 11.29.19 2nd Edition

Publisher: INtense Publications LLC

Alexis Minerva has never been the type to cause trouble. With good grades, and a clean school record, she's on the track to move out of Dixon-a small town with even smaller minded people.

But on the night before her 17th birthday, she meets Milo James-a sexy, mysterious angel with a thirst for danger who represents a mother's worst nightmare. From the moment her eyes locked with his, there was an undeniable connection she couldn't shake off.

Convinced she'll never see Milo again, Alexis goes back to her mundane world counting down the days until graduation. Then one day, Milo shows up in Dixon unexpectedly rocking the small community.

Determined not to follow in her sister's footsteps despite Priscilla's troubled past haunting her every move, Alexis tries her best to avoid Milo, even though he seems to be everywhere she goes. But a chilling phone call from her sister changes everything. Now she must step into Milo's world to find her sister-a fast-paced world filled with less-than-holy activities and late-night wild parties.

As the tension intensifies between Alexis and Milo, Alexis discovers a dark secret that threatens to tear them apart setting off events that will change her life forever.

About the Author

MELODY FELIX-PRIETO lives in Georgia with her husband and two children. When she isn't writing, you can find her taking photographs, editing video projects, or watching movies. THE TRAGIC + DIVINE is her debut novel. Visit her online at www.melodyfelixprieto.com.

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Blog Tour: Soteria: The Crisis Forge

Science Fiction/Romantic Science Fiction

Date Published: 7/5/2019

Publisher: Chandra Press

An asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Twins from another planet sent to stop it.

With a vibrant art movement, thriving music scene, and culture of change, 1960s Manhattan is pulsating with energy. Twins Mark and Jason appear human, but they have been given powers beyond anyone’s imagination. The city embraces them and they dive headlong into all it has to offer.

As the time for them to fulfill their mission grows near, the twins sense that something is wrong. Have they been sent to Earth to save it or to be eliminated? With the fate of both planets in the balance, and everything they’ve grown to love on the line, can Mark and Jason unravel the truth before time runs out?

If you enjoy a tantalizing journey into Manhattan in the 1960s, aliens among us, and rogue AIs, you'll love Soteria: The Crisis Forge.

Excerpt 

The entrance to the subway was congested; there were panhandlers blocking the steps. He made his way down the stairs and onto the crowded platform. Columbia students were talking of academic subjects. Three young hippie-looking girls giggled about last night’s trysts with their boyfriends. On a wooden bench in the middle of the platform, a homeless man slept beneath a blanket, his stench mingling with the smell of cheap wine, staining his coat. A police officer nudged him with a nightstick as he passed, and a group of teenage boys in the corner laughed at the spectacle. It was 1969. It was an inspiring time – a time of experimentation, a time of pleasure. It was a time when rules seemed to matter little to a world turned over on its head. 

These humans are fascinating! Mark would say to himself as he walked through the subway. He could read their thoughts as well as hear their words, and he drank it all in with delight. Today, the platform bathed Mark in a cacophony of sights, sounds, and feelings. A swirl of human emotions flew through the air in what was to Mark a sinuous torrent, flickering and jumping like sparks from a burning campfire, flying colors, a kaleidoscope of humanity. It baffled him how humans would lie to each other about the silliest things, even to their closest friends, and how they often seemed so mentally distant as they pushed themselves up against each other’s bodies in the subway cars. They remained faceless, isolated in a crowd, and yet they increasingly busied themselves within the networks of their own lives. For all their strange, paradoxical behavior, Mark found humans forever surprising, constantly naively beautiful; every day they fascinated him more.

Playing games and testing his abilities at mental manipulation became a daily pastime on the train, an unending source of pleasure. He would often construct suggestions, implant them into some unsuspecting mind, and watch the ensuing reactions. He might create a deep-seated attraction in a young girl’s mind for a stranger. Then, he would observe her eyes as she pined away, watching her new true love jump on the express train, never to be seen again. Or he would suggest to the mind of a busy businessman that he had left the gas on in his house, and then relish in the anxiety, witnessing the panic, as he would flee to rush home. What silly games! He often thought. But I might as well practice what powers I have. Who knows how I’ll need to use them.

Besides, these minor games paled in significance to the games Mark and Jason had played when they were children. Jason had once gone so far as to induce the preacher’s wife to seduce their school principal in the rear of the church. Jason had practiced his abilities of suggestion from an early age, and he had developed them into an art. Not only was the school principal thirty years older than the preacher’s wife, but he was fat, almost consistently unshaven, and always had bad breath. Mrs. Shulster, on the other hand, was a beauty with blue eyes, a fetching southern accent, and healthy blonde curls that bobbed and bounced in the most affected manner intended to disarm the men she dealt with as the church’s first lady. She was also supervisor of the school, a position she often abused, dispensing a cruelty for which even at a young age the brothers, especially Jason, had no patience.

One day she found herself naked, reclined and sweaty, succumbing to an uncontrollable lust with the principal behind a thin curtain in the rear of the church. The debauchery devised by Jason was cruel even by his standards, and afterward, he allowed her only to recall the event in full during an occasional dream. She would never be sure whether the tryst had been real, but it would always haunt her. Mark eventually admitted he enjoyed watching her squirm in her seat whenever the principal walked into the room, or when his eyes found hers. To this day, the preacher’s wife never understood how it was possible that she had found herself sitting in a pew next to all the prim ladies without any underwear beneath her stiff dress. The principal, for his part, could never quite wash the smell of her off his clothes. The brothers had hated them both, and never had a moment’s remorse. They granted themselves these silly pleasures, thinking of them as learning exercises, for their time living amidst humans passed ever so slowly. Mark had been seeking what these beings were flush with, what they took for granted, this irrational torrent they call emotions. Maybe one day I will even be able to dream. Could I imagine such a thing?

About the Author

Roberto Arcoleo was born in New York City, Queens to be exact, into a working-class Italian-American family. Roberto’s father was a hardworking, grumpy, and reserved restaurateur, his mother a warmhearted, talkative hairdresser.

Roberto was a bit of both. He grew up in Astoria in a two-bedroom ground-floor apartment with one younger brother, his parents, and an invalid grandmother. His early years were tumultuous and confused. Roberto never felt that he fit into the molds that were laid before him. His early extended family home life was chaotic, and his teenage years were worse. After the Catholic grammar school, he continued on to a Catholic high school. He hated them both.

As a teenager, Roberto felt more and more apart from his surroundings. He withdrew into his own world. To onlookers he seemed full of bravado, but he was timid and reserved at heart, always feeling out of place. He started lashing out at the world with violence as mark of distinction. He found a home within street gangs and hard drugs at fourteen. Roberto started living on the streets at fifteen, but was soon taken in by a schoolteacher uncle who lived on Long Island. His uncle held him captive from his own devices until he graduated high school.  Later, in college, he studied psychology hoping to find answers. Still troubled, he didn’t find the answers he needed in the text. He gave up his clinical ambitions for more underground alternatives. The same uncle gave him his first camera, and he discovered photography.

Under a name other than Arcoleo, he obtained recognition as an artist. He received his MFA from Brooklyn college and later saw his art reviewed in the New York Times. Roberto’s work has been acquired by major collections. Among them Brooklyn Museum, the Chrysler Museum, the Museum of Fine arts in Houston and the Museum de l’Eysee, Lausanne Switzerland. He was the first artist working in photography to be given a one-person exhibition at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art; he was awarded a stay at the American Academy in Rome; and his work is presently in the National Gallery of Art.

He always had an urge to write and his late mother was always asking for his first novel. He told her he had to wait until he was called from a special place.

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Blog Tour: The Enigma Stolen

TechnoThriller

Date Published:

April 2015 (Paperback and eBook)

Jun 12 2018 (Audio Formats on Audible and iTunes)

Publisher: ICABOD Press

A brilliant mathematician and spoiled rich girl, Gretchen, is focused on harnessing Big Data and computing power to control the world stock markets not only to optimize her family’s wealth but also to control the future.

As a descendent of the Nazi Werewolf Clan, is Gretchen being maneuvered into leveraging unlimited computer power along with the ethical nihilism to manipulate lives, or just stretching her genius?

Is Gretchen working alone or is she adding additional computing sources from the Dark Net?

The R-Group, a high-level information gathering and security team, composed of Quip, Otto, Jacob, and Petra along with Julie and Juan’s fledgling group of Cyber Assassin Technology Services teams are trying to isolate the source of the massive computing power required.

Could these cyber schemers be as good at analyzing the information as the R-Group themselves? 

Are people unwittingly feeding an ever-growing tsunami of information into increasingly sophisticated computer systems? This begs the question: who controls whom? 

Breakfield and Burkey shared their 5th book, The Enigma Stolen, from their award-winning series focused on the relevant world of Big Data and analytics. This one will make you ask who are the winners when humans are herded to a machine's targeted end point?

What Readers are Saying

Kirkus “The covert Werewolf Clan, with ties to Nazis, may be responsible and has been using a computer program to accurately predict stock futures. But it has an even more ambitious plan to link supercomputers around the world and potentially manipulate the future.”

“Wow this series gets better and better with every book I feel. Stakes are high in this one. More people are using the technology to hire assassins to go after high profile people.”

“Yes, I am hooked. I love the way the plot twists and turns throughout the book. As one completes, another arises.”

Excerpt

Petra then questioned, “How were all these events correlated? Is this another one of those Big Data exercises that takes mountains of data, shifts through them, and then carefully maps the correlation of peanut butter to jet engines?”

A sullen Quip studied Petra for a moment, then clarified, “Just for the record, we have never mapped peanut butter to jet engines using the Big Data techniques that ICABOD and I have assembled.

“What we saw was a Mr. Clay Dough, in Tennessee, correctly placing stock futures and making a killing. We found a Mr. Mauro Rosati, in Argentina, correctly placing oil and currency futures reliably for months. We even had ICABOD rescue me and EZ from the clutches of the U.S. airport security goons. These, along with the recent example of the cyber assassination of a political foe in Poland. All of these events could not have been surmised without some heavy computer muscle somewhere in the background.”

Otto sensed the annoyance in Quip’s voice and interjected, “Do you believe these are raw examples of computing power harnessed to predict the future? Quip, while that has some validity based on what you and ICABOD have correlated, it is only four examples.”

Quip, now returning to a more analytical state of mind, nodded then added, “I agree that only four examples doesn’t make the case. I find it more interesting to offer a hypothesis to see if other data examples can be obtained that would confirm or deny the statement being made.”

Wolfgang nodded in agreement and placated, “Please forgive us if we voice some skepticism based on the data set. However, I actually tend to agree with this hypothesis, Quip. Further, I want to investigate the money trail with these incidents too. There appears to be more going on here than meets the eye. Tracing the money trail could help us further correlate the events to people or organizations.”

Otto thought a moment and then tested, “Can all of our intelligence gathering be done in our regular coat remote, or do we need more feet on the street to meet?”

They all turned to look at Otto, who nervously eyed them all and apologized, “Sorry, it just came out that way.”

Quip smiled and remarked, “So while he is on his knees, can someone please pass the cheese?”

Otto, now a little embarrassed, attempted to restore order to the meeting and commented, “Alright, no more rhymes. Now I am warning.”

Jacob interjected, “So, is it like this every morning?”

Insight:

Trust Big Data or Jest?

With new waves of technology, it is common for folks to voice skepticism. In The Enigma Stolen the idea that data will rule over human choice comes into question.

We also wanted to show how the team reacts to the possibilities of a relationship between unrelated incidents. On a broader scale most people can be herded to the direction of a marketing campaign, compulsive purchase, or even eating a certain type of food with very little effort.

Taking a leap with Big Data and the analytics which go along with it, takes us to a level we might not be prepared for. How do you see Big Data impacting your choices? (By the way did you use free will to get here or did Big Data Computing steer you this way? Just asking…)

About the Authors

Breakfield – A renowned technology solutions architect with 25+ years of experience in security, hybrid data/telecom environments, unified communications, enjoys leveraging his professional skills in creating these contemporary TechnoThriller stories. He likes studying World War II history, travel, and cultural exchanges everywhere he can. Charles’ love of wine tastings, cooking, and Harley riding has found ways into The Enigma Series. He is convinced that being a part of his father’s military career in various outposts, has positively contributed to his many characters and the various character perspectives he brings into the series. He has accepted the challenge to try to teach Burkey humor and has added this to the stories in an unexpected manner.

Burkey – A renowned customer experience, business architect optimizes customer solutions on their technology foundation. She has been a featured speaker, subject matter expert, interviewer, instructor, and author of technology documents, as well as co-author of The Enigma Series. It was revealed a few years ago that writing fiction is a lot more fun than white papers or documentation and Rox took it to heart. As a child she helped to lead the other kids with exciting new adventures built on make believe characters. As a Girl Scout until high school she also contributed to the community in the Head Start program. Rox enjoys family, learning, listening to people, any kind of travel, outdoors, sewing, cooking, and imagining the possibilities.

Breakfield & Burkey – Combine their professional expertise, knowledge of the world from both business and personal travels, many characters whom have crossed their paths are a part of the series character universe. They find it interesting to use the aspects of technology people are actually incorporating into their daily lives and make it one aspect a primary theme for each story. Breakfield & Burkey claim this is a perfect way to create stories that pit the cyber good guys versus the cyber bad guys. The books in this award-winning series can be thoroughly enjoyed alone or in sequence.

You can invite them to talk about their stories in private or public book readings. Burkey also enjoys interviewing authors through the Indie Beacon/iHeart Radio programs with dates of interviews showing inside the calendar page of their website www.EnigmaSeries.com. Followers can see them at various book fairs, book Stores, Comic Book events, libraries and other fun venues.

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Blog Tour: Mass Awakening

Spirituality / Self-Transformational / Narrative Nonfiction

Date Published: October 8, 2018

Publisher: Balboa Press

An Exposé on Dark Agendas and How People Are Fighting Back   

The truth has been hidden from us while a global policy of mass depopulation and exploitation has been carried out behind the scenes for the past half-century. The author, an independent journalist, became aware of this agenda only in the past few years. She found it hard to believe, but in-depth research and the testimony of whistleblowers worldwide have exposed these strategies. They include geoengineering (chemtrails), fluoridation of water supplies, GMOs, vaccinations, false flag terrorist attacks, and economic warfare by the group David Wilcock calls the Cabal. However, despite this grim reality, a positive shift of mass awakening is occurring worldwide. Tribunals are being established to prosecute elite offenders; revelations of hidden technology like free-energy and new economic models are being put forth. The author shows how humanity is claiming its rightful heritage as spiritual beings and charts the course of our elevation of consciousness.

MASS AWAKENING gives us all real hope for an amazing future.

Mass Awakening is Shoshi Herscu's well researched and yet profoundly personal handling of intensely shocking material, rarely covered in print. It is both a true inspiration and a much- needed breath of fresh air.

—Ada Tourtsakis

PrepareForChangeLeadership.org



Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

My name is Shoshi Herscu, a 47-year-old woman and an independent

journalist from Haifa, Israel, who survived a childhood growing up

in three different countries: Romania, Israel, and the Ivory Coast

where my father relocated us as he worked as a construction engineer

for the “Sonitra” company. Growing up in such varied countries and

cultures imbued me with an appreciation for their great diversity and

an abhorrence for the mono-culture that is being “engineered” in

today’s world, especially in the West. And although, like most of us,

I came to trust my parents and their surrogates—education, church,

and government—I sensed at an early age that I was being sold “a bill

of goods,” or a certain life perspective and wanted to choose my own.

Living in Africa with its earthy population more in touch with

primal instincts allowed me to develop and trust my intuition

about people and agendas. After returning from Africa, I travelled

extensively with my parents in Europe at a time when traditional

cultures were giving away to the Americanization of the world. I was

a very curious child in general, reading a lot (a real bookworm) and

developing a different perspective from the people around me. I just

love learning about new places, tasting new cuisines, and meeting

new and different people from all over the world all the time. I’m

just intrigued by the diversity and new experiences to have.

It was for this reason that after my undergraduate studies in Israel

and my release from military service, I chose to obtain my MBA in

England (1994-1995). I was interested in international business, and

I wanted a more global perspective. After I graduated, I traveled the

world and got as far as Australia. I enjoyed the atmosphere there,

the great diversity of its landscape, but on the other hand, I noticed

the large number of surveillance cameras in all its cities. I didn’t

know back then that it was one of the “5-Eye Nations.” To me it

was strange, as Australia is supposed to be a democracy. So I asked

others why there were so many surveillance cameras here? People

told me that it’s for “security reasons,” but Australia wasn’t exactly

a terrorist hotspot. While I wasn’t convinced by this explanation, I

didn’t investigate further.

When I was traveling there, the then Israeli Prime Minister,

Itzhak Rabin, was assassinated. I was so shocked that I didn’t want

to return to Israel. I felt that if an Israeli prime minister, one of most

protected people in the world, could be assassinated in Tel Aviv by

a radicalized student, it was no longer a democracy and I didn’t

want to live in such a country. I cried for two days, even though I

disagreed with his views, and was ashamed to leave the house with

my swollen eyes. I did return to Israel at the beginning of 1996.

I worked as a content editor and the Webmaster of Infotour.

co.il, a site covering tourism in Israel, including attractions and

events, which was sponsored by the Ministry of Tourism. Seeing

the commercial need, I became a Hebrew-English translator in

2005. I’ve been a social activist over the years and an independent

journalist writing about these topics in my blogs. Between 2012-15, I

worked at for pCon, a computers and technology magazine in Israel

after applying for a job as a reporter and writing an investigative

report on encryption in the corporate world. Learning about how

people and companies used encrypted messages via email to hide

information and activities, I got my first glimpse into how pervasive

the control of information had become. I assumed this was a reaction

to government surveillance. I then discovered that a discrete mailing

service (encrypted) was shut off by the government, despite the

business success of this service. 1 I realized that the “Big Brother”

wants to know everything about us and wouldn’t allow any “slips”.

I followed this lead in other investigations and saw how

information was being managed and in many cases hidden from

the public by the government. From this job and others in the

technology sector, I became an avid researcher able to analyze masses

of information and to find the truth about our real reality and

connecting the dots.

In 2013, I started seeing news alerts on covert topics such as

Geoengineering, Chemtrails, and Solar Radiation Management

(SRM), which I ignored for months. I just didn’t give any thought

to these alerts. They appeared too farfetched. My mind was, in the

parlance of technology, just turned off to these indications. Then

something struck me. I looked up at the sky one day and saw that

there were strange cloud shapes like cobwebs; some were spread

across one part of the sky but not in another, and there was no

uniformity in their shapes. I also noticed white tracer lines that

started “swelling” in the middle of the summer where in Israel

we’re supposed to have blue cloudless skies for at least half a year,

and definitely during the summer. I started taking pictures when

I came upon pink clouds. Yes, pink. One day I was so shocked

that it was dark at noon in midsummer that I was speechless. I

took endless photos as evidence for my followers on Facebook, who

apparently weren’t aware of this phenomenon because it wasn’t being

reported—or was it being suppressed?

About the Author

Shoshi Herscu has an MBA degree from the University of Humberside in Hull, England (today, The University of Lincoln), and is a graduate (BA degree in English linguistics and special education) of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel.  She worked as a journalist for PCON magazine, which is an IT magazine for CIOs and CTOs in major companies and organizations in Israel for several years. In this position, she wrote in-depth articles on a wide array of advanced technologies, such as encryption, the Dark Net, analytic tools, protecting the corporate website. She also interviewed opinion leaders in the Israeli hi-tech arena.

She then worked as the content manager of IsraelAgri.com, the international Israeli agriculture portal, where she wrote articles on Israeli agriculture and interviewed opinion leaders in this field. Becoming aware of the topics in this book, she started writing articles for alternative newspapers and blogs, one of them Israeli Patrioti. Over 20,000 people have read her online articles on this site, now defunct, and her personal blog on Cafethemarker.com.

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