Margaret Westlie Shares an #Excerpt from Anna's Secret @MargaretWestlie #HistFic #Mystery #TBR

Ian surveyed the expanse of red fields linked one to the other by the rail fences and the wild blueberry bushes, remembering that day, and Anna’s sturdy figure hurrying away over the crest of the hill, her auburn hair in its neat bun, shining in the sunlight, her back straight in its grey drugget dress.

He strode on. The night air against his skin was as warm as milk. He thought again of the tiny daughter lying beside Anna in the churchyard. We should have had another, and another after that.

He had said as much to her after she had recovered from their daughter’s birth, but she had only smiled at him and nodded. She never conceived again, he thought. …

Old Annie had attended Belle’s delivery, but there was not much she could do except give her wormwood against the pain. The baby was turned, she said. She had tried to turn it but Belle had only screamed in pain and had begged her to stop. Belle had laboured for a day and half and finally died from exhaustion. “The baby was likely dead long before that for the same reason,” said Old Annie.

Old Annie knew things. She had the second sight. She also knew about plants and seeds and weeds. She attended Donald’s birth too, Ian remembered, and the birth of the nameless little one. Anna seemed to take great comfort in Old Annie’s presence after that. She spent many hours visiting her. At least that’s where I thought she was, he thought. They say Old Annie knew how to help a woman get with child. I wonder if she knew how to prevent it too? He shivered at the idea. Would Anna have done such a thing? Old Annie’s senile now so I guess I’ll never know.

His thoughts took him past Murdoch’s ruined house, doorless now in the bright moonlight. Old Annie was right about this, too. Murdoch’s door was smeared with blood, the blood of the just. My Anna’s blood. Though I don’t know anymore how just she was. Oh, Anna.

He followed the path that took him across the field to where Anna had lain so few weeks ago. The little pillow of straw, still dark with her blood, lay a few feet into the field, Ian stopped and stared at it. This is all that’s left of her, he thought. Rage filled him. Why, Anna? He kicked the straw pillow to bits and began to run, a great lumbering run. It felt good to run again. The soft wind blew past his face and whistled across his ears.

Suddenly he was in James’ dooryard. The house was dark and silent now, the windows jagged where Donald had broken them. The rage, which had abated somewhat in his run, returned to a hot boiling fury. “I will burn this house of sin!” he shouted, and ran to the barn to gather some straw. He returned in a few moments with a great armful and stuffed it through the gaping windows, then went back for another. Armload after armload of straw he carried and stuffed through the windows, far more than he needed to start a fire.

“My father helped build this house,” he raged, “and I will destroy it!” He stood and surveyed the dark silent house before lighting the match that would burn it to ashes. His father’s face seemed to hang in the air before his own, its expression sorrowful. He remembered that expression from his childhood, and hesitated before striking the match. The rage drained away. “Oh, Poppa, what am I to do?” He fell to his knees and wailed like a tiny child, the tears finally coming, awkward, hot and wrenching. He buried his face in his hands and wept, the tears dripping between his work-roughened hands onto his grey homespun shirt. At last, his sorrow and his anger spent, he rose and stumbled away across the moonlit fields to his own place, the match still clutched in his fingers.

Anna Gillis, the midwife and neighbour in Mattie’s Story, has been found killed. The close-knit community is deeply shaken by this eruption of violence, and neighbours come together to help one another and to discover the perpetrator. But the answer lies Anna’s secret, long guarded by Old Annie, the last of the original Selkirk Settlers, and the protagonist of An Irregular Marriage. Join the community! Read Anna’s Secret and other novels by Margaret A. Westlie.

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Genre – Fiction, mystery, historical

Rating – G

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Website http://www.margaretwestlie.com

Pendelton Wallace on Not Making Up Story Lines #AmReading #Mystery #Thriller

Inside the Mind of an Author 

You don’t want to know what goes on in my mind. It will shock and scare you.

I was at a writers conference and heard  James Rollins tell a good story.

He said that most people wake up on Sunday morning and think about the golf game they’re going to play or the football game they want to watch. He lays in bed on Sunday morning and thinks of interesting new ways to kill people.

I’m kind of like that. I don’t make up my story lines. I get them from the newspapers and news reports. I couldn’t make this kind of stuff up. However, once I have the story line, I have to add enough sex, murder and mayhem along the way to keep my readers interested.

I have so much trash and dirt in my mind that it could never be published. Hmm . . . maybe I should take a short at the erotica genre. Seriously though, if you’re a girl, you may not want to date me. Most of my erotic scenes are from memories of “the women I have loved before.”

I’m always looking at people, places and situations and thinking how they could fit into a book. Many of my friends and co-workers have wiggled their way in to books. They may not recognize themselves, but little pieces of their personalities become quirks of my characters.

I have a character in The Mexican Connection, who did not know her husband was a drug dealer until the DEA knocked down her door. This really happened. I met “Lisa” many years after the incident, but it was still indelibly etched on her character. A story like that just had to end up in print.

My head is exploding with ideas, I will never be able to write them all down. I keep a folder on my computer called “Story Ideas.” I have files in it with little kernels that may or may not someday become stories. But I write them down so I don’t lose them.

I know the story line for the next two Ted Higuera novels. I just have to read the newspapers.

I hope someday to be able to write historical fiction. I have at least three stories that I would like to tell. The first is about my great-grandfather in the Civil War. The next is about how my maternal grandfather came to this country and how he met my grandmother. Then there is the story about the USS Kearsarge and the CSS Alabama. What drama.

My mind never stops. I just don’t know if I’ll be able to keep up.

If Clive Cussler had written Ugly Betty, it would be Hacker for Hire. 

Hacker for Hire, a suspense novel about corporate greed and industrial espionage, is the second book in a series about Latino computer security analyst Ted Higuera and his best friend, para-legal Chris Hardwick. 

The goofy, off-beat Ted Higuera, son of Mexican immigrants, grew up in East LA. An unlikely football scholarship brought him to Seattle. 

Chris, Ted’s college roommate, grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth. His father is the head of one of Seattle’s most prestigious law firms. 

Ted’s first job out of college leads him into the world of organized crime where he faces a brutal beating. After being rescued by beautiful private investigator Catrina Flaherty, Ted decides to go to work for her. 

Catrina is hired by a large computer corporation to find a leak in their corporate boardroom when the previous consultant is found floating in Elliot Bay. 

Ted discovers that Chris’s firm has been retained by their prime suspect. Now he and Chris are working opposite sides of the same case. 

Ted and Catrina are led deep into Seattle’s Hi-Tech world as they stalk the killer. But the killer is also hunting them. Can Ted find the killer before the killer finds him? 

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Genre – Mystery, Thriller

Rating – R

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Website www.pennwallace.com

Kevin Sterling on The Quandary of Sex in Mainstream Novels @KSterlingWriter #AmWriting #Thriller

It wasn’t originally my idea to include sex in my books. In fact, the thought didn’t even occur to me when I initially became serious about writing. Instead, it was the first editor I worked with roughly two decades ago who told me the novel I had written would be so much better with sex. I resisted the idea at first, but eventually succumbed to his advice. And you know what? He was right.

I locked away that particular book in a virtual drawer long ago, probably never to be seen again, but not before I discovered the sex scenes brought so much life, passion and intimacy to the characters, not to mention richness to the experiences they were going through. And it transformed my thoughts about sex in mainstream novels.

I am often quoted for saying that sex is the most emotionally charged part of our lives, so living it through a book character completes the window into his or her soul. And, when you add those exhilarating scenes to the suspense and intrigue of an action thriller, you kick the reader’s experience to a new level and connect with all of his or her sensibilities.

The problem is that sex, particularly in American society, can be a taboo subject. Perhaps that makes the experience of it in a book more titillating, hence the tremendous success of Fifty Shades of Grey. But it also pushes a large number of readers away.

I have a friend who often says a line when he introduces me to other people: “This is my friend, Kevin. He writes porn.” My friend is just kidding around, of course. But for some people, that’s not too far off the mark. They will overlook the fact that my novels are primarily about action, mystery and suspense, and fixate on the erotica, believing that it’s the true, underlying focus of the book. They just can’t see it any other way.

Then why, you may ask, do I include sex at all? Why would I voluntarily alienate a sizable cross-section of readers who would otherwise enjoy my geopolitical intrigue, espionage, exotic locales, international cuisine, wine, cars, existentialist philosophy, and sarcastic humor?

Because I want my books to touch every corner of the reader’s body and soul, making their reading experience complete and delicious. And if that makes some people uncomfortable, I have to respect their feelings and let it go. I can’t let the prospect of lost sales dictate my craft.

But you want to know what’s really exciting? The knowledge that there are people out there who are on the verge of breaking through their inhibitions and will serendipitously find themselves ready to feel the whole gamut of sensual experiences while holding a Jack Lazar novel in their hands. Can you imagine the rush, the shock, and the rapid heartbeats as they try to process those steamy scenes along with action and suspense of the rest of the story?

I’ve received messages of gratitude from people who’ve experience exactly that, and I can’t tell you how rewarding it is to know I’ve touched them in such a meaningful way. That, more than anything, makes me want to write books for the rest of my life.

Nevertheless, everyone has different thoughts on this subject, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But for me, it’s safe to say I’m on board with putting sex in my novels, and I doubt I’ll ever turn back.

Happy reading, writing and…heavy breathing.

"James Bond Meets Fifty Shades of Grey"

Immerse yourself in the world class novels that combine action, mystery & suspense with tantalizing and tastefully written erotica. You’ll find all your sensibilities roused at once with Kevin Sterling’s ultra-sexy, action-packed Jack Lazar Series.

In this fourth action-packed thriller, Jack travels to Denmark for a business venture, but what seems to be a textbook transaction turns into a nightmare after he gets involved with Katarina, a vivacious Danish girl who apparently lacks a moral compass, not to mention an off button. After naively believing their liaison was just a random encounter, Jack discovers she’s connected to his business deal, and there’s a dangerous political group with skin in the game, too.

Katarina makes a convincing case of being a victim, not part of the conspiracy, but can Jack really trust her?

The firestorm gets out of control as Jack digs deeper, unearths the convoluted plot behind it all, and discovers that innocent people are being heartlessly killed. He’s not only horrified by the reason why it’s happening, but how it’s being done, and there appears to be no way to stop it from occurring again.

Then the scheme’s real objective emerges, launching Jack into action with intelligence operatives to prevent it. But that’s not so easy with assassins on Jack’s tail, forcing him to struggle for survival while trying to prevent Katarina from getting caught in the crossfire.

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Genre – Action, Mystery, Suspense

Rating – R

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Connect with Kevin Sterling on Facebook & Twitter

Belinda Vasquez Garcia Shares Her Bad Experience with Book Signing @MagicProse #AmWriting

I was going to Phoenix one time with my husband for a reunion. Why not kill two birds with one stone, to use an old cliché, and set up a book signing? I had just published my first book, a kid’s chapter book.

I called up a Barnes and Noble store in Scottsdale. The store manager was too nice. “Why don’t you come up the month after instead? The store always declares that day as Teachers’ Saturday. It is a month before school starts, and the store gets very crowded that day. Teachers’ Saturday is always the very best time for a kid’s book signing, and we would love to have you. Your book looks so cute and educational.”

“But I’m in the area the month before. I’ll have to make a special round trip of 840 miles a month later.”

“We give the teachers a discount that day. I’m sure they will all want to buy your book to read to their classes. In the flyers to the schools, I will mention your signing.”

I cupped the receiver and told my husband excitedly. “We should go twice to Phoenix. She has assured me that I will sell a zillion books. Blah! Blah! Blah! Kiss. Kiss.”

There were hotel costs, restaurant bills, and gas, so I also booked a Borders book store in Tempe, and a Barnes and Noble in Tucson for a two-day whirlwind book tour. The store managers were all very nice, and said they would order my books for the signings.

We survived my husband’s reunion and a month later we were back in the Phoenix area.

On Saturday at the book store in Scottsdale, I sat there for two hours and about five people came into the store.

“I just don’t understand it,” the manager said. “I sent out all the flyers. I am so sorry no one has bought your book.”

I leaned over the banister, scanning the lone person in the store browsing the aisles. None of the five customers had even come upstairs to the children’s books.

“Here, let me buy a copy,” the manager said and yanked out a ten dollar bill.

I signed the book; my time was up; and we drove to Tucson.

The signing went better there.

The next morning on our way out of town, we stopped in Tempe for a few hours for my book signing. I had called up a cousin to let him know I would be at Borders and given him the address and time.

I waltz into the store, singing. “I’m here for the book signing.”

“What book signing?” the manager said.

“I set one up several months ago. Remember? I spoke with you.”

“Uh. Duh. Flubber. Drip drop. Sorry.”

“Let’s get out of here,” I told my husband.

On the way out of the Phoenix area I said, “Did you notice no one was at Borders? That store is really screwed up; I’m surprised it stays in business.”

The last thing Miranda ever expected was to see her brother’s ghost at the fallen Twin Towers.

It’s bad enough survivor Christopher Michaels scares her with claims that if one dies violently, his ghost will haunt the place that holds his name. And to top it all, one of those thousands of ghosts follows Miranda to her hotel. The only certainty is the ghost grabbing her under the covers is not Jake.

Their parents’ deaths separated Miranda from Jake when they were kids. Michaels insists Jake brought them together and it’s no coincidence that of thousands mourning at Ground Zero, it’s his best friend she bumps into. Some best friend. Michaels is more like a moocher. The cheapskate never has money, just a blood-stained wallet he broods over. Miranda has no choice but to hang out with the weird Michaels in order to unravel her brother’s past.

As Miranda spends time with Michaels, she begins to wonder who he really is. Against her better judgment, Miranda becomes emotionally entangled with Michaels, a bitter alcoholic with a secret linked to her brother and that blood-stained wallet.

I Will Always Love You is part mystery, suspense and romance, a novel that will keep the reader turning the pages!

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Genre – Suspense, Mystery, Romance

Rating – PG

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Connect with Belinda Vasquez Garcia on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://belindavasquezgarcia.com/

Message of the Pendant by Thomas Thorpe #AmReading #HistFic #Mystery

Suddenly, a loud voice bellowed upstairs. “Bastard!”

Charles raced up to the third floor and found Arthur Hurst sitting at a desk, rummaging through drawers.  He clutched a piece of paper in one hand, shaking with rage as he looked up at Charles.

“Businessman, hah! This man, Black is a British agent! Here’s the proof of his duplicity. Where is he? It’s time to put an end to the vermin.”

Charles gasped in shock. The entire charade was unraveling! He tentatively leaned toward the desk and reached for the note. “What do you mean? What evidence?”

Hurst glanced down at one of the drawers. He reached inside and picked up a ledger. “Wait a moment. There’s something else.”

Charles’ eyes darted toward the window, knowing Black lay outside, unconscious and defenseless. Quelling an urge to run, he pretended to be curious and slowly edged around behind the man, as if to look over his shoulder. What could he do? Desperately his gaze searched for an answer until he spied a letter opener. In one motion, he grabbed the dagger and plunged it into Arthur’s back. The rotund body jerked upwards, dropping the notebook. He tried to turn around, but instead, slumped forward onto the desk.

For a moment, Charles stood shaking in disbelief at what he had just done to his sister’s husband.

William Darmon and wife Elizabeth were powerful figures who in 1818 set society’s pace from expansive grounds known as Mayfair Hall. When a family member is murdered, a mysterious pendant is found containing a long lost request by Napoleon Bonaparte for an American mission to burn down Parliament buildings. The couple sets out on an action filled pursuit of the killer. While interviewing Henry Clay in post-war Maryland about the failed mission, they uncover evidence of a conspiracy to free the Emperor from exile. The Darmons infiltrate the cadre, but a shipwreck off the coast of Scotland, a firestorm at the Darmon’s Manor and a harrowing assault on the Island of St. Helena loom before the mystery can be unraveled.

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Genre – Mystery, Historical, Thriller

Rating – PG

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Connect with Thomas Thorpe on Facebook

Website www.darmonmysteries.com

Steps Into Darkness (Shakertown #Adventure) by @BensWoodard #YA #Mystery

The unknown figure’s back was to them as he connected the wires to the detonator. Will shoved Tom. Only minutes remained.

They located the last connection point where the blasting caps were wired to two sticks of dynamite. The wires to the plunger snaked up the hill. The connecting strands were twisted, tightly, as with pliers. Tom snatched a rock, but Will grabbed his hand and pointed up the hill. Tom understood. The man would hear the pounding. They each took a twisted connection and tried to pry it apart with their fingers. They would need to break only one.

The wires resisted. Tom gritted his teeth, then remembered his pocket knife. He pulled it out, flipped the blade open, and wedged the tip between two strands. He twisted and the blade snapped. The sound startled the man. He whirled around and stared directly at the boys. Tom forced the broken blade into the gap in the wires. Will put his finger on top of one and pulled as Tom twisted. Blood ran down Will’s hand as the metal bit into his finger. They strained, and watched the man. His eyes darted in all directions. Then he made his decision. He pulled the plunger up, hesitated a moment, and slammed it down.

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Genre - YA/Mystery

Rating – PG – 13

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Website http://BooksByBen.com

@KellenBurden Sjares His Writing Style - Narrative & Dialogue #AmReading #Mystery #Thriller

There’s been a great deal of talk lately about my writing style, and the way that I’ve chosen to narrate my novel, Flash Bang. Some readers have stated that my grasp of grammar and the basic structures of dialogue are questionable.

I would like to take this opportunity to address those complaints. Flash Bang is a novel about an ex-US Army infantryman/CID agent-turned-bounty-hunter who is called on to solve a murder. The narrative style that I employ in the text is purely of my own creation and is intended to draw the reader into the main character’s thoughts and into his visceral reactions to the situations he’s in and the things he is experiencing. When I started working on this project I made the conscious decision to forgo some of the more basic writing structures and grammatical rules in order to free up the flow of my narrative.

During times of stress or anger sentences sometimes shorten to only words at a time. The subject often falls from the beginning of the sentence, leaving only the verb and some nouns. Let me assure you that this is intentional. From my personal experience as a full time thief fighter and Army Basic Combat  Training recruit, the interior monologue of an individual who is in the process of being beaten, shot at or who is simply angry enough to kill someone is severely different from that of someone who is ordering a cup of coffee or buttering some bread. My narrative in those instances is intended to illicit visceral responses in the reader similar to those that Parks is experiencing. During fights the world comes to Parks in flashes and still frames, the way they do in real life. He hears and feels things in a 360-degree onslaught that often causes sentences to run into one another as he himself begins to go into sensory overload.

Another decision I made from the start of the project was to present the dialogue in a different format than usual; my reason being that I really wanted the reader to feel as though Parks was telling them the story, speaking freely about the events the way he would tell a friend. My use of the words “say”   and “says” as dialogue cues was a means of accomplishing that. I feel that it creates a more fluid dialogue between the characters and really draws out the subtext of what is being said.

Finally, my use of foul language throughout the course of the novel has been criticized. Flash Bang is a novel narrated by a military veteran living in a nightmare world of violence and self-loathing. There’s going to be some cursing. Honestly, the fact that it is the language, and not the shooting, beating, stabbing or killing that is the most offensive thing about my work for some readers, says something about the world we live in. I didn’t see that coming.

Any uneducated dialogue or foul language is the product of many, many interviews and my own personal experiences in both military and civilian law enforcement. Like it or not, this is the way many or most of your warriors talk; not all, but certainly my characters. And if bad language is a deal breaker for you, then you are not my target audience. There’s nothing wrong with that. There are plenty of authors who do not use those words. Those words are mine and I chose to use them to realistically depict the thoughts, feelings and interactions of a haunted man who’s really good at catching bad guys and doesn’t like what it does to him.

In closing, I hope this has cleared up some of the controversy and helped to draw those who might be interested in reading my work toward it, and those who are not, toward more suitable material for them.

Respectfully yours,

Kellen Burden

Sebastian Parks is drowning in a flood of his own creation. Dishonorably discharged from the Army, he’s wracked with night terrors and an anger that he can’t abate. Unemployable and uninterested in anything resembling a normal job, Parks makes his living in fugitive apprehension, finding wanted felons on Facebook and thumping them into custody with his ex-military buddies John Harkin and Eric “Etch” Echevarria. When the body of a teenage Muslim boy is found in front of a downtown Denver nightclub Parks, Harkin and Etch are called on to do what they do best: Find bad men and make them pay. 

First-time author Kellen Burden serves up edgy humor, brutal action and characters you can’t get enough of. Flash Bang will keep you turning pages until the end.

Received “Honorable Mention at Los Angeles Book Festival 2014″

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Genre – Thriller, Mystery

Rating – R

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Kevin Sterling's #WriteTip On An Outline Doesn’t Have to Handcuff Your #Story @ksterlingwriter

An Outline Doesn’t Have to Handcuff Your Story

There are so many different schools of thought about outlines. Some famous authors say they never write a book without one, and others will tell you they simply sit at their desk with a general plot idea and just start typing, allowing the story to follow its natural course.

I believe a compromise is the right way to go.

An outline has two primary purposes. The first, quite obviously, is to give the author a roadmap for writing the story, thereby preventing the possibility of conflicts, the likelihood of which becomes greater when the book has a complex plot and/or our main character is solving a mystery. The second purpose of an outline is to remind us exactly where we are, which becomes increasingly more helpful as we’re writing the latter parts of a book.

The biggest mistake I think many people make with an outline is thinking they have to relentlessly stick to it. The magic of writing a great novel is letting the story create itself, hence why many writers don’t use outlines at all, so we can’t let an outline handcuff our story. Instead, we should use it as an initial roadmap subject to change at any time. It provides a clear direction to start, thereby allowing us to hit the ground running, but gives us the latitude to take the scenic route or change our destination entirely if that’s where the story and our characters want to go.

But here’s where I think things can really go awry, and I found out the hard way with my first two novels. If the story takes a turn, even if it’s just a small one, the result can be a domino effect that destroys the original storyline, renders the outline unusable, and may even conflict with the chapters we’ve already written. But what do most of us do? We jot down notes to fix these things later and keep on trucking because we’re all fired up about our new storyline and can’t wait to get it all down.

My advice? Call a time out. If we press forward and let this new direction take over without keeping everything in line, the manuscript will turn into a convoluted, mind-numbing mess that will take forever to fix, assuming we don’t give up on the project entirely and metaphorically throw it into the nearest trash dumpster.

It is rare for me to go an entire day without some sort of story alteration. But before I’m done for the evening, I do three things, regardless of how late I have to work to accomplish them. First, I fix everything in the book – past chapters and all – that may have been impacted by the latest change. Second, I edit the outline to make sure it ties perfectly with the manuscript as it now stands. And third, I alter the description of all future chapters in the outline to correspond with the altered storyline. That way, when I pick up the book again, whether it’s the next day or two weeks from now, the entire project is tight and clear, I can remind myself of exactly where I am, and I can keep working without any risk of driving myself into a dreadful mess.

Being an artist and disciplining our work practices seem counterintuitive at times. But when we successfully balance the two, the creative process is so much more enjoyable and fulfilling.

Happy writing!

The Jack Lazar Series has it all from mystery and suspense to action, humor and romance

Jack heads to Egypt to investigate a crash-landed World War II fighter plane that was recently discovered in the middle of the Sahara. But something remarkable was left onboard, and people will stop at nothing to possess it.

An Egyptian Girl with Blue Eyes? Just Stunning.

But Jack soon finds himself in the middle of a hornet's nest as he becomes enthralled with Dalia, an exquisite woman of Egyptian and English descent whose father is the Egyptian Head Consul to the UK, not to mention a formidable ex-agent with the Mukhabarat. The man's skills and weapons come in handy as he and Jack join forces to battle a faction that has plans to kill millions of innocent people and subject the world to their twisted ideologies.

A Race Against Time

The trail leads to Northern Europe as all hell breaks loose. And before long, it's up to Jack and Jack alone to cheat death as he struggles to save Dalia, her father, and scores of unsuspecting people from the plot of a deranged madman.

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Genre – Action, Mystery, Suspense

Rating – R

More details about the author

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