Eddy Hart is back! The not so hard-boiled private investigator becomes involved in the 1940's Hollywood scene. When Eddy's old flame, now Hollywood's hottest star, needs help, Eddy finds himself investigating a blackmail scheme that involves mobsters, movie stars, corrupt politicians and businessmen, and an international assassin. Through it all, Eddy has to sort out his feelings for his old flame, keep himself and his fiancée out of the gossip columns and make sure he isn't the assassin's next victim.
Saturday, July 28, 2018
Hollywood Hart by D. P. Gertner @madmonc
Eddy Hart is back! The not so hard-boiled private investigator becomes involved in the 1940's Hollywood scene. When Eddy's old flame, now Hollywood's hottest star, needs help, Eddy finds himself investigating a blackmail scheme that involves mobsters, movie stars, corrupt politicians and businessmen, and an international assassin. Through it all, Eddy has to sort out his feelings for his old flame, keep himself and his fiancée out of the gossip columns and make sure he isn't the assassin's next victim.
Friday, July 27, 2018
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Romo's Journey by Paul J. Joseph @throughthefold
Romo awakens in a cargo bay having no memory of who he was before. He has a body now, which is new to him. Previously he was something entirely different. Now he's a robot. The machine his program was installed into was designed for use in space, but it's hardly adequate to accommodate his artificial intelligence, and it will be difficult to upgrade its crude components to perform even at human-like efficiency. His camera eyes are low resolution and his hands were designed for menial tasks. The other robots in the hold are the same as him physically, but they are not conscious or self-aware, as he is. His mind expands to possess the robot body, but also to establish his surroundings. Where is he? Who put him there and why?
The ship is intended to ferry 100 colonists to Mars, along with numerous supplies, including robots like himself. Who will he trust? His AI was not programmed with any explanation concerning who he is, but he is aware of two things. He knows he is in danger of destruction and he must get as far away from humans as he can. But he suspects that the humans on the ship are not his enemies, and he will need their help to survive and find his answers. The space ship is bound for Mars. That is where he must go.
The captain of the Santa Maria thought he'd seen everything until he met Romo. The Robo-Naut systems in the hold were intended to be remote operated by humans. Up until now they did not operate themselves, let alone ask for asylum, which is what Romo is doing. The captain's daughter Peach, however, is young enough to believe in miracles and cleaver enough to make them happen. Still a teenager, she is abnormally intelligent but finds herself alone among most of her peers. She and her father were abandoned by her mother, a woman with a dark secret that only grows darker with time. Peach finds solace in hacking and solving puzzles. She prides herself on knowing all that goes on, particularly those things she's not supposed to. And she considers Romo to be the greatest gift she's ever been given. She and her friend Wizard help Romo rebuild and upgrade himself.
Through his friendship with both Peach and Wizard, Romo discovers that he has an innate sense of loyalty and that he can experience many of the feelings humans do, including a natural urge to protect and defend those he cares for. And he's particularly protective of Peach.
But the mission is in jeopardy before they even begin their main acceleration towards Mars. Saboteurs have damaged the radiation shield on the engine with the intention of poisoning the colonists and crew before they reach Mars to colonize it. And they couldn't have accomplished this without somebody on the mission being a traitor.
Romo's plan to save his new friends puts him at odds with the evil organization PACE, who appear to be agents of world domination. His plan to save the ship must also expose the traitor. And, though his original concerns involved protecting only himself, his fondness for his adopted crew changes his priorities to the point that he would risk his life and his mission to protect and defend the humans onboard the Santa Maria. But will the colonists respond in kind? Will they accept Romo, an artificially intelligent robot who doesn't know his own origins? Is Romo a crew member or a machine? More to the point, can he trust even these humans to give him the chance to find out?
Romo is not human, nor does he want to be. He wants to be himself, a being with an innate sense of justice and fairness, loyal to the best traditions of humanity, but also living outside of humanity. His destiny is on Mars because there he can walk freely, not needing air or warmth as humans do. On Mars he will find answers, but he must survive the journey first. And, because the colonists befriended him, he wishes to save them as well.
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
Wizard of the Wasteland by Jon Cronshaw @JLCronshaw
Finding hope in a hopeless world...
Abel survived the apocalypse but drugs nearly killed him. He scratches out a living scavenging for anything of value until he witnesses something incredible...the Wizard of the Wasteland.
When Abel joins the travelling showman, passing off pre-apocalypse technology as objects of magic and intrigue, they come upon a horrifying sight: a group of children enslaved by the brutal drug gang The Family.
As he and the wizard take on the challenge of freeing the slaves, Abel must resist the temptations of a world without hope. To keep the kids from reliving his miserable existence, he’ll have to risk everything. Even having the wizard on his side may not be enough…
Monday, July 23, 2018
Dawn by Dan O'Brien
Synopsis:
The world is divided between a nation of men and a nation women, each of whom rules with absolute authority. A war brews deep beneath the surface of the peaceful negotiations between these two nations as a love blossoms between a princess and her guardian, a slave of the Society of Dawn, in the first entry of this romantic fantasy series.An excerpt from Dawn:
Aurora had never journeyed so far alone. In the six years that Aeschylus served as her guardian, she left Pa’ngarin no more than a handful of times. She touched her saddle horn and rubbed the pearl there delicately.
She thought about the day Aeschylus was chosen as her guardian. It was her twelfth birthday, a milestone among maidens and Children of the Dawn. Her aunt, the Lordess Ascendant, the beautiful and powerful ruler of Pa’ngarin, picked Aeschylus for Aurora from among the horde of unseasoned and dirty men who worked the mines and fields.
Her aunt’s words were soft that day.
Soft speech wasn’t Lordess Ascendant’s way. However, on the day when Aurora was presented before the Court of the Nine Blossoms, she spoke in hurried, loving words. She told the young maiden that this man was the strongest among the bloodthirsty and hate-mongering species of men.
He would protect her until his death.
Her new guardian would be her steadfast companion for as long as she saw fit. He would see to all her needs; and if she required, be her First––marking her ascendance.
Aurora smiled as she remembered young Aeschylus. He was already a man when he was appointed as her guardian. Strong-jawed and tight-lipped, he was a cordial, but removed, warrior just a moon past his eighteenth birthday.
At the time, she didn’t know that Aeschylus followed her around long before he became her guardian. His mother died in the same Scythian raid that killed her mother when she was an infant. Every time young Aurora wandered without supervision, Aeschylus wasn’t far away.
But his assistance had a price.
When he was only thirteen, he carried Aurora from the orchards after she fell down and injured her foot. It was against Pa’ngarin law for a man to touch a woman without consent, especially to treat her as if she were powerless to help herself. His act of compassion earned him ten lashes at the center of the Court of the Nine Blossoms. After that incident, he became more careful, making certain to remain hidden from view as he protected her.
Aurora shook herself from her reverie.
Along the side of the road sat a heavy black stone etched in sparkling silver lettering. The letters read Ma’oren.
Ma’oren was a rich town built around mining and forestry operations and run by a minor ascendant named Eris. Aurora couldn’t remember having met her.
Rows of tall trees obscured her vision to the north and south, but she had little fear in her heart despite the circumstances of the previous evening. The silence enveloping the surrounding forest would’ve been disarming if Aurora didn’t know that mining drove the creatures of the forest deeper into the woods. There were few dangers to a woman of her station in a society governed by women. If she were attacked and kidnapped by brigands, they would swing in the Court of the Nine Blossoms.
The trees lining the road soon gave way to cramped male dormitories built upon each other like sloping cliffs. The buildings had no windows except for a wide opening on the second floor.
A man stepped out of one of the dormitories’ slanted doors. His long gray hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail and his brown eyes, wide and wise, watched the young maiden pass. He didn’t meet her eyes, but instead stared intently at her mount. He knew the penalty for looking at a woman, if not asked to do so, was the sealing of the eyes.
Opposite the dormitories stood a vast cavern dug deep into the earth, beside which sprawling mining equipment was placed. A piercing whine filtered from the mine’s entrance, as if a whistle were being blown deep below. Aurora spurred her mount forward through the haze of dirt and dust spewing from the mine and made her way up the road toward the city proper.
As if by magic, the haze disappeared and a gleaming citadel rose in the distance. A dawn sphere was a great, ribbed structure composed of symmetrical, ivory pillars from ground to sky.
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
Science Fiction Short Stories by Celesta Thiessen @CelestaThiessen
Science Fiction Short Stories is a collection of eight, inspirational science fiction stories: Home, The Sacrifice, The Same Stars, Siren Song, What’cha Makin in the Barn?, Dragons, Fate’s Gift and Truth.
Home:
Stella, an unplanned child, now fifteen years old, is left alone on the space station when the crew leaves to return home. Struggling to survive, she soon learns that an apocalyptic disaster has struck the earth. No replacement crew will be coming. The only comfort she finds is in her dreams. But could the vivid images be real?
Truth:
In the white-washed Truth society, under the dome, they don’t acknowledge dissenting rebels like her. But when her life is threatened, Mark, a devout follower of the Truth offers her refuge. She’s always had a thing for Mark and now she needs him like never before. Nameless and with no memory of her past, she’s afraid and in desperate need of companionship…but he won’t even look at her that way. Mark says he’ll help her get away. But even if she does escape the dome, what will she find outside…and how will she be able to face it alone?
Monday, July 16, 2018
Drained by Dan O'Brien
A frightening new case. A mysterious journal. The beginning of the end. Lauren Westlake has left behind the horrors of northern Minnesota to investigate a strange package with a cryptic return address. Crossing the country to the city by the bay, Lauren discovers that Locke was only the beginning. Crossing paths with a stoic SFPD detective and a surprise from her past, she must figure out what hunts the foggy streets of San Francisco in this new novella. Is it vampires? Is it something more?
An excerpt from Drained:
THE OVERPASS that separated the yuppie, hipster youth of the city from its poorer denizens was indistinguishable from any other place in the city.
Benny squatted under the comfort of his concrete shelter to avoid the light drizzle that replaced the evening fog. His grizzled features and unkempt salt-and-pepper hair might be charming if he weren’t several shades of crazy and hungrier than a feral cat. He remembered when he could wink and say a few smooth words and a beaming waitress might swoon––regaling her with stories about his gigs around the city and the promise of a little danger.
In the late 70s Benny fancied himself a musician, playing the tall bass with a few friends; it was tough for Benny to think of them as friends now. What passed for a friend on the streets was someone who wouldn’t steal your blankets or chase you out of a rat-infested hole with a taped-together shiv made from broken bottles and pieces of fenders from stalled-out cars.
The 70s hadn’t been kind to Benny. Cocaine went from recreation to lifestyle, and then to death-style. As his other bandmates started lives, Benny spiraled deeper into despair.
His friends lost his number.
It wasn’t long before he didn’t have the money for electricity, and then he lived his life in darkness. From there, it was a short hop to not being able to pay rent; soon thereafter, the streets became his home. After enough time wandering the cold pavement, he became too volatile to bunk in the homeless shelters.
He was a creature of the streets.
Benny made a strange sort of existence for himself under the overpass. Newspapers were arranged like a well-manicured lawn. Boxes, crushed and water-damaged, were the wings of his great destitute estate. The barrel at the center of it all, burning brightly like a lighthouse upon rocky shores, was full of the wisdom of Western society: newspapers, magazines, and various novels.
Grumbling angrily and unintelligibly to himself, Benny dug through one of his grocery carts filled to the brim with postmodern junk; he was looking for a broken umbrella amidst the sea of garbage and treasure within his cart. As Benny extricated the battered object of his desire, he was startled by a voice. “I do enjoy these brief moments of gentle rain. Do you find them as soothing as I do?”
Turning, Benny was immediately irritated by the man’s presence. Dressed to the nines––with angular, symmetrical features––there was something unreal about his figure.
“I don’t want no trouble.”
The man smiled. “Nor do I. But I wonder, Benny, what is it that you’re looking for?”
Benny looked at the streets and saw cars zip past between the concrete dividers that obscured his shelter from view. It was the main reason why he stayed there: it was his island, his cabin in the woods.
“Mister, I’m hungry. Do you have any food?”
The man smiled again, disarmingly. “I must admit I’m a bit peckish myself. Though I have no food, at least nothing that you’d find satisfying, Benny.”
Benny was struck by the disconnected nature of their conversation, as if the man weren’t talking to him at all and instead reading from a script. This feeling became more surreal as the man stepped past him into the darkness of the overpass. His features were adulterated by the shadows there: his dark hair made darker, his gray eyes disappearing.
There, in the darkness, Benny heard something move.
“Watch out, mister, there are rats back there. I catch them sometimes and cook them up.”
The man chuckled but didn’t respond, turning his back to Benny. When he spoke again, his voice had changed; it seemed bloated and distant. “They never look for the wretches, Benny. Give me your poor. Give me your hungry. Those are just words. I’m hungry as well….”
The sound came again.
There was no mistaking it for a rat this time.
It was bigger.
Hollow, deliberate steps haunted the shadows.
A tremor crept across Benny, rising from his toes like acid reflux after he ate from the dumpster behind the Korean restaurant a few blocks away. “I don’t want no trouble,” repeated Benny, his voice quaking as he took a few steps back.
“You won’t have to worry about trouble any longer. I will take your fear. Feed on your fear….”
Benny thought to run.
Panic gripped him, but his muscles wouldn’t respond. He wondered if the lady doctor at the center was right: Was he crazy? Was he chasing shadows in the dark?
Looking at his bin of junk, he saw the broken pipe he’d taken from a rundown building in the Tenderloin. He thought it was copper, but it turned out to be rusted and useless like him. Gripping it like he was Babe Ruth waiting at the plate, he watched the darkness. The well-dressed man had disappeared, but his voice drifted on the air like a spirit.
“Why fight it, Benny? Is this really worth living for, this sad little life?”
Benny’s fear turned to anger.
Gesturing with the pipe, he shouted into the dark.
“How do you know my name?”
The laugh sent shivers down his spine.
Something in the darkness tripped and fell, collapsing the third and fourth cardboard bedrooms of his sprawling street estate. A figure emerged in the darkness: something frightening beyond words.
“We know all about you, Benny.”
As it took shape in the half-light of the passing cars, Benny held his breath and swung the pipe as hard as he could, lurching forward as it connected with thin air. With a gnashing maw, it blotted Benny from view and pulled him back into the darkness.
If you loved Bitten (or supernatural fiction, a good mystery, and a fun story), then you’ll want to give Drained a look. The third novella in the series, Frighten, will be released in early 2019.
Dan O’Brien has over 50 publications
to his name––including the bestselling Bitten,
which was featured on Conversations Book Club’s Top 100 novels of
2012. Before starting Amalgam www.amalgamconsulting.com.
Follow him on Twitter at
@AuthorDanOBrien.
Consulting, he was the senior editor
and marketing director for an international magazine. You can learn
more about his literary and publishing consulting business by
visiting his website at: Friday, July 13, 2018
Casting Call for Murder by P. L. Gertner @diva7133
Ellie Nelson gets persuaded to audition for a reality TV show about Confederate gold hidden in the Lake of the Ozarks. Hollywood, the FBI, Civil War reenactors and a salvage team are all thrown together in the search for stolen treasure. When Ellie discovers a dead body on the set, her life is in jeopardy until she solves not only the murder but a 150-year-old mystery as well.
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
Bitten by Dan O'Brien
What readers are saying about Bitten
“Bitten is an extremely well-balanced and engaging novel. It contains mystery, suspense, horror, romance, and best of all – a creative, genre-bending twist on werewolf mythology. The story is quick-paced and dark without being too heavy or overdramatic. The protagonist is a strong and courageous FBI agent who is able to assert herself without casting aside her femininity. She reminds me of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone and Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum…. If a sequel follows, I will definitely read it.”
“Author Dan O'Brien left his mark with Bitten. I’ve now read three books by O'Brien, but BITTEN is by far my favorite. It not only showcases his literary skills, but leaves the reader wanting more. What else could an avid reader ask for?”
If you love supernatural fiction, a good mystery, and a fun story, then you’ll want to give Bitten a look. Releasing in July as well is the follow-up novella, Drained. The third novella in the series, Frighten, will be released in early 2019. Visit his website at: www.amalgamconsulting.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AuthorDanOBrien.
Saturday, July 7, 2018
Paradise Found by Cristina Salat
After years in messy custody battles with her parents, it’s time for 16 &1/2 year old Amelia to create a life of her own, an adventure that takes her to newly-forming intentional community on a mystical, Northern California apple farm among modern-day radicals. It’s true, Amelia would like to help make the world a better place...but really she’s come to the Esoterica apple farm because one of the people there happens to be someone she’s had feelings for...for years. And it’s never to late to create a happy adulthood for yourself, right? ‘Paradise Found:’ a tale of community, friendship, sovereignty, love, and all the magic in the world.
Monday, July 2, 2018
Ghost Drums by Matt Cole
In this tale of gothic horror, the vampire, Lazarus Kalon, is intent upon stealing the power of a shape shifter, a shaman of the Kwakiutl people. Yet, as Lazarus moves in on the shaman and the Kwakiutl village, another supernatural being comes into play, a demon with his own agenda for the Kwakiutl and who is very aware of Lazarus' presence and intent.
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