#(yes this book was published in 2017. yes I read it months ago. no neither of those things are relevant)

[merlinsear]

I’m going to need a lot more people to start talking about the books I like because I can’t keep scrolling through tags of ten posts forever.

[nerdy-as-heck]

Bitterly By Your Side

A/N: Me? Posting a fic for the first time in 8 months? I'm just as surprised as you are. Ao3 Link

Summary: Logan is a world-renowned author, but not for his scientific journals. For a romance novel he never intended to publish, and an upcoming movie that would finally get the two it was inspired by together.

Ships: Pre-Prinxiety, background Logicality

Warnings: None

There were a lot of things in this world that didn’t make much sense to Logan. What made someone hate a specific group of people for an unchangeable part of their identity? Why would some people continue to believe a falsehood even after being shown irrefutable evidence? Why the fuck is college so expensive? But this. This went beyond every question that Logan could ask himself. Any amount of logic he tried to apply would shatter into a thousand pieces.

For years, Logan had been a distinguished author. Dozens of academic papers, journals, books, and articles were published under his name, making more breakthroughs in science than one could have ever imagined possible. Some were small advancements, granted, but none were insignificant. But that’s not why the general public knows Logan’s name.

Ten years getting a PhD in Astrophysics and one Nobel prize later, Logan Berry’s name is on the Best-Selling Romance Novel section in every bookstore across the country. And Logan will continue to blame his husband for it every time someone asks.

Not that it was really /entirely/ Patton’s fault. Both of them had been sick of Roman and Virgil’s pining that had been going on since freshman year of college. At least Logan’s infatuation had only lasted a month or so before bluntly asking Patton if he finds him physically attractive; that story always gets a laugh every time they tell it. The four of them had been suitemates during their first year, with Logan and Roman sharing their room while Patton and Virgil had the adjoining one. That was nearly twelve years ago, and yet the two of them still seemed to be clueless as to the other’s emotions, even with all four of them once again living in the same apartment.

All Patton had said was he wished there was a way to see them get together, like a movie or something. Now, Logan couldn't direct or act, but he could write. So, naturally, he did the only thing a sane person would do; he stayed up for three days straight writing a 300 page chaotic mess of the two falling in love. Perhaps it was a bit dramatic, and it definitely ended up being far longer than he had intended. But Logan’s train of thought never seemed to stay quite on track when it came to making his soulmate happy.

Of course, Logan had no interest in simply reading it over and over again himself; he printed out the pages and presented it to Patton as an early birthday present. Logan was under the impression that Patton knew it was a simple gift for his eyes only, nothing more. But Patton hadn’t quite gotten that impression.

Logan hadn’t necessarily made it a ‘fanfiction’. Yes, it was about two hopelessly oblivious in love college roommates that got together in the end. The thing that kept it unique was neither character revealing their actual name until the very ending, instead choosing to use a nom de plume. In this particular case, Roman had called himself “Merlin” and Virgil went by “Storm”. Neither the reader nor the characters within the story would learn their true names until the last chapter.

Apparently Patton did not read to the last chapter. Instead, about halfway through, he had believed it was a good idea to take it straight to a publisher; he couldn’t believe Logan had trusted him with the draft of his first novel!

It wasn’t until Logan got a copy of the book in the mail, fully printed and with his name on the cover, did he realize why Patton hadn’t commented on it after finishing. “Bitterly By Your Side” was already in every store in town and quickly spreading. Logan quickly pulled Patton into their shared room to discuss this with him and show the last page; needless to say, Patton was humiliated that he had done such a thing. It took hours to calm him down. Logan simply believed the book would not be popular and it would be taken down from the shelves in a matter of a few weeks.

He could not have been more wrong.

People slowly began to recognize Logan on the streets, asking for photos or to sign their copy of the book. Stores would reach out to him and schedule book signings, which Logan reluctantly went to as a chance to promote some of his other works. No one was buying any of that.

This was about two years ago. Logan had always scolded Roman and Virgil for not reading as often as they should, but it was unexplainable how grateful he was that they never listened. Not once in those years did the two step foot in a bookstore, see Logan scatter away for a photo when he was found in public, or questions the ‘meeting’ Logan seemed to be going to every other week.

By this point, Logan had gotten used to how things were. It was bringing in money to support the entire group, and no one was hurting for it. Though it still confused him why this was the case, he had accepted it as an unexplainable cosmic phenomenon. Logan didn’t even think twice when allowing a company that approached him to make a movie adaptation, with the promise that Logan could supervise on site, of course.

Months later, and somehow the two’s obliviousness had only gotten worse. It was a true miracle that they never noticed Logan being gone all the time or that Roman didn't pick up on the potential movie acting gig. Though the last wasn’t much of a coincidence; Logan always checked their mail and tossed out any advertisements for it.

Logan had only looked over one important detail; the company picking up the story was Disney. And regardless if they had heard about it before, Virgil and Roman both had a dedication to watching it together day it shows up on Netflix. Patton would always tease Virgil about it being their little “date night”, which would be received by a shove and Virgil’s hood coming up to hide his face.

On the night that this happened, Logan was out late at a midnight book signing, and Patton had agreed to go with to drive him home in case Logan was too exhausted. So for the first time in quite a while, Roman and Virgil had the whole apartment to themselves for movie night. As tradition, Virgil grabbed popcorn, snacks, and drinks, running back to the couch just before Roman clicked play.

“Are you ready for what is sure to be the GREATEST FILM of ALL TIME?”

“You say that every time, Princey. Bitterly By Your Side may be Disney, but its a dumb romance too. It can’t be that good.”

Of course Roman scoffed at that, but before he could continue the argument, Virgil just threw a handful of popcorn at his face and hit play. Storm happened to be the first character that came on screen, and the second Roman saw the actor’s face he gasped and leaned forward.

“That man… Is the love of my life.” Virgil couldn’t help but to laugh at the dramatics of such an early declaration, and for a short time Roman stared at Virgil rather than at the movie.

“You think that guy is good looking? Don’t be ridiculous, he looks like a ten year old that got into his mom’s makeup.” Roman could only glare at Virgil for a few minutes before Merlin came on screen. And then it was Roman’s turn to laugh as Virgil’s jaw literally dropped.

“You can’t be serious! Storm is far more attractive than /that/ over dramatic piece of work!” Virgil didn’t even have the words to argue at the moment, simply shoving a hand over Roman’s mouth as Merlin already had a shirtless scene. It wasn’t more than five seconds later, though, that Virgil realized what he had done and practically shrieked, crawling to the other side of the couch. “S-Sorry… But if that doesn’t prove Merlin is the best, then nothing will.” A simple joke had now turned into a full out war between the two, pointing out each small quality in the other character that made them far superior.

“Look at Storm’s purple eyes! And that long hair, I just want to run my hand through it and kiss that man.”

“They’re probably contacts anyway! Merlin has the swoop in his hair that at least doesn’t block his /actual/ green emerald eyes!”

“But that’s the thing, Storm is so shy yet abrasive at the same time! His hiding just makes his natural beauty all the better!”

“Sorry, what did you say? I couldn’t hear you over Merlin’s fifth shirtless scene.”

Of course, it was all joking banter. Despite the insults thrown from time to time, this was a typical thing for the two of them, and tonight wasn’t any different. It only finally died down at a point where the movie was getting ready to end. For some reason, Roman was a moron. Well. Virgil knew that already. A cute moron, but still a moron, one that had decided to run to the bathroom right after the climax of the movie and refused to let Virgil pause it. In the short time, Roman was gone, that was all the movie needed to make Virgil’s fight or flight response kick in.

“Now that we’re dating, shouldn’t I at least get to know your name, angel?”

“...Its Virgil.”

“Roman. A pleasure to finally meet the real you.”

That was. A weird coincidence. But with anxiety, nothing ever felt like things could be so coincidental. So once Roman came back, Virgil was on his phone, googling the book, and every word he read just made his face burn even more.

  Bitterly By Your Side is a romance novel by Logan Berry, published in 2017. In recent interviews, he has confessed to it being inspired by real life events and people he knows, though for now he wishes the details to remain private.

...Oh Logan is so dead when he gets back.

“H e y!” Virgil was next to be assaulted with popcorn as he pulled his hood up to avoid Roman seeing his face right now. “Get off your phone and watch the eye candy! Storm is back on screen!”

...Storm. The character inspired by Virgil. That Roman had been calling hot all night long. And Virgil had done the same to Merlin. Virgil didn’t focus much on the rest of the movie, far too busy trying to hide his ever reddening face and cursing the entire world. Once the movie finally ended, Roman stood up to give the TV a round of applause. But before the credits, there was one more thing…

  And now, an interview with the author of the original book: Logan Berry!

Roman was understandably shocked and sat back down, confused as to when Logan had written a book without telling them. With every word spoken on the show, Virgil’s heart sunk deeper and he made another promise to kill Logan tomorrow.

  Yes, it is true that this novel was inspired on true events. I have two friends that have been obliviously in love with each other for nearly twelve years now, despite mine and my husband’s encouragement for them to confess. Storm and Mer- Well, I suppose I can use their real names now, it's no spoiler since this is shown after the movie. I don't blame either Virgil or Roman for their hopeless pining, it's just something my husband tired of and wished to see come to life in case it never did in person.

After that sentence, Roman was quick to turn off the TV. At least now it made sense why Virgil had curled up into a ball on the couch during the interview. Silence. Silence that lasted far too long for either of them to stand, yet neither had the will to break it.

Surprisingly, Virgil was the one to swallow his pride first. “...so. Eye candy, huh?”

Not even a second later, Virgil felt a pillow hit his head. “Oh shut up! You’re one to talk! Drooling in every shirtless scene in the whole movie!”

There wasn’t a coherent comeback in Virgil’s mind, so instead he just flipped Roman off from his hoodie protection. Roman, being the prick he was, couldn’t let it go so easily though, grabbing Virgil’s hand and ignoring his own pounding heart as he pulled the two closer together. Safe to say, Virgil felt like he was going to explode. “You know the real thing is always better than fiction.”

And then for some unknown reason, one that he would claim to this day as temporary insanity, Virgil’s mind had decided it was time for him to be the moron today. The only thing he could think to do was kiss Roman, so he did. Both were surprised and afraid, but neither pulled away. Not in the first few minutes, not even in the first hour. It was a scene that easily could have rivaled the masterpiece of a movie in itself. By the end of it, they were both out of breath and exhausted, choosing to simply sleep together on the couch.

“...goodnight, Storm…” “Night, Merlin.”

Still. They were going to kill Logan in the morning. But for now, it was just them, and that was enough.

[christinaengela]

Hello friends and fans!

Welcome to my 45th newsletter – September 2020!

On A Personal Note

August was a blurry month – it really doesn’t feel like September, it feels more like March the 342nd! Know what I mean? Anyway, between work and everything else I have going on the side, the last six months or so have literally disappeared! For most people, this year has been a complete loss, for me I’ve at least published 7 new titles. Not to brag, but this brings my tally up to 30 books!

On the home front, my workshop is where I indulge my creative side in wood and metal work. Some years ago however, I got sick and tired of sharing my workspace with the rest of the garage! When it rained, it meant I couldn’t run my vintage bug outside, and the small space available meant I wouldn’t be able to work in there that day! About two years ago, I built a greenhouse against the side of the house across the alleyway between the house wall and the boundary wall, bordering on the back garden, which in the end my love convinced me to use as a workshop space instead! For the past two years, this has been where I worked on various projects, regardless of the weather. The only problem with that was again, space. While I had more permanently accessible space to keep my tools and to work, quite a lot of my tools were actually kept in shelving under the work benches. I needed more space – or to be more specific, a broader room to work in.

So, finally, last week I finally gave up on the bar area. It was where we entertained friends and it consisted of an actual bar room with an adjoining dining area with casual benches and a table for when we had barbeques etc. It’s been a considerable amount of time since we’ve entertained anyone who drinks, and neither of us actually drinks much more than a brandy now and then – scarcely enough to warrant wasting the useful premium real-estate on a bar! It would be far better to just dedicate a cupboard inside the house to housing the drinks, glasses and accoutrements – and all my collectibles, antique cameras and telephones etc. on the walls could be redistributed around the rest of the house.

That said, Wendy could have her greenhouse back – and so last week I relocated my workshop to the larger space where I have more room to work on projects and store and organize my tools and materials! For the first time, I feel I actually have the right space to indulge my creativity! The adjoining stoop will still be reserved for chats, game nights and barbeques – should they ever arise again.

Aside from that little personal ramble ,I also have some very good writing-related news to share with you this time – another two of my books have come out as audiobooks, and I’ve also published a new novelette called “Lifetime”! Moon Books also released an anthology I was the Editor for, so it’s really been a productive year for me so far!

Art

I also indulge in painting from time to time – and no, I don’t mean walls! The following paintings are in my portfolio:

#gallery-0-13 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-13 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 20%; } #gallery-0-13 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-13 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

“Human Nature” 2017 A4 acrylic canvas

“Balancier” 2020 A2 acrylic canvas

“Rescuer” 2020 A2 acrylic canvas

“The Awakening” 2020 A2 acrylic canvas

“The Earth Wept” 2020 40x40cm acrylic on canvas

You can read more about my art projects on the Art page.

What do you think of them? Feel free to let me know!

Music

Yes – I also make music from time to time!

A selection of music tracks I made using eJay and other similar apps between 1999 – 2008 are available on my YouTube channel.

You can read more on the Music page on my website!

Activism

For those of you interested in my activism-related posts and activities, you can follow them at “Sour Grapes: The Fruit Of Ignorance“.

Current Writing Projects 

On a suggestion of Brandon Mullins from Moon Books, I agreed to a combined edition of “Duck Blind” and “The Next Room”, to replace the two novellas published in February this year. The new book is novel length at over 46000 words, and I also wrote a short foreword and an introductory portion to precede the first part of the story.

As I mentioned several times previously, I have still a lot of work to do! I have a number of part-way completed stories awaiting my loving attention! Unfortunately, life and work have a nasty habit of getting in the way!

Also, thanks to Lulu.com’s spite in throwing their entire publishing platform into a mincer and expecting users to just shut up and like it, I have left the platform entirely – but aside from the immense amount of work that precipitated on my side with having to relocate all my books from there to other platforms, it also means I’ll have to rebuild one of my books entirely from the ground up! “The Pitfalls of South African Self-Publishing” is now out of print thanks to Lulu. Why? Because the second half of the book details the ease of self-publishing using Lulu’s old platform – the one they entirely scrapped and replaced with a vague, useless monstrosity – and gives a step-by-step example with screenshots, and is practically a love-letter to Lulu! I will now have to redraft that entire portion of the book, thanks to them!

In the past week or so I’ve been working on an editing project for Moon Books, and you can read more about that in the next section.

Editing

I completed editing an anthology for Moon Books in mid-August entitled “Moon Books Horror Anthology V”. This book contains 7 short stories filled with pure dread – and it was released on 20 August. It’s already available in eBook and paperback.

Currently I’m close to finishing the edit of a sci-fi tale for Moon Books. “Avenging Aranis” is by UK writer Steve McElhenny, and it’s the first part of a trilogy!

Marketing – The Dreaded “M” Word! 

Portfolio 2020!

I thought it would be nice if I could produce a neat, organized catalog of all my books that interested parties could download and browse – a free, distributable and shareable catalog, and so I created “Portfolio 2020!” – a listing of all my currently available titles!

Portfolio is more than that though, because it also contains a biography as well as synopses for most of my titles – and I have a plan to update it regularly, perhaps on an annual basis! Portfolio 2020 is available as a free download from my website.

Videos

In August, Nigel Peever made this amazing audiobook trailer video for the newly released “Demonspawn” – have a look, isn’t it beautiful?

https://christinaengela.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/demonspawn-video-by-nigel-peever.mp4

Sales

Let’s start with the good news! Audiobook sales over July were truly amazing – with a massive (by my previous standards) 42 copies of “Blachart” sold from Audible during that month! This frenetic surge in sales didn’t last very long, just to the end of July, with just 3 sales of that book in August. I realize a slowdown is inevitable as a new title stops being new. In fact, August proved to be rather dull in comparison, with just 3 sales of “Blachart“, and 3 sales of a new audiobook title, “When Darkness Calls“. This of course led me to formulate a new personal theory regarding sales, popularity and choice of narrator when publishing an audiobook – one I will probably explore later in the second edition of “The Pitfalls of South African Self-publishing”, which I am working on as time allows.

But I digress! Ebooks sales on Ebooks2go have picked up a bit over August since I transferred my titles there at the start of the month, culminating in three whole sales (sarcasm definitely intended). To give you an idea how writers get ripped off by some distribution channels, just check out the screenshot below:

The three top-most entries show three eBook sales via Hoopla – and each of those titles sold for $2.99. What do I get out of it? 14 US cents out of $2.99 per sale! It’s positively downright bloody criminal! For comparison, the one beneath that – a sale via B&N at least gave me $1.64 out of $2.99 – but only one of those from July. No wonder so many writers give up!

Over-all though, I’ve got the idea that sales have been dwindling globally and not just for me, so I’m by no means feeling picked on. I realize that with economies teetering on the brink of disaster – and so many of my contacts on Facebook posting the sad news that they will be homeless and sleeping in their cars or on the streets within days – how very, very lucky I am. I may not be raking it in as an author – but at least I have a secure job, for which I’m very thankful indeed!

Publishing

These are the books I’ve released so far this year!

#gallery-0-14 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-14 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 16%; } #gallery-0-14 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-14 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Between January and September 2020 I released eight new titles! Of these, two – “Duck Blind” and “The Next Room” have been replaced by one combined title, “Mirror, Mirror” which includes both of them. Of course, this reduces my count back to 30 again – but when you already have 30 or so books to your name, what’s one here or there?

New Releases:

“Lifetime”

On August 07 Moon Books Publishing released a novella of mine called “Lifetime“, bringing my title-count up to 30! Here’s a look at the back cover blurb for the book:

“An entrepreneurial couple, happily married, run their deep-space prospecting company together. They are unexpectedly separated when the ship one of them is aboard is lost during a prospecting voyage. The other spares no effort in an attempt to find her, and immediately sets out on another ship to find her. Meanwhile on a remote planet, surrounded by wreckage and the bodies of her crewmates, she has survived and treated her injuries, and fights to stay alive while she awaits rescue…”

Buy now: eBook Paperback Audiobook (coming soon)

“Lifetime” is available in ebook and paperback and will be coming out in audiobook format soon, narrated by Miciah Dodge.

“Mirror, Mirror”

This was shortly thereafter followed by another new title “Mirror, Mirror”, on August 11, which repackages “Duck Blind” and “The Next Room” into one single novel-length book. “Duck Blind” and “The Next Room” are also now out of print – being henceforth exclusively available in “Mirror, Mirror”.

Buy now: eBook Paperback Audiobook (coming soon)

Here’s a look at the description:

“Things aren’t always as they seem. Neither was Charlie Branson – or Andy Niksn.

Outwardly, Charlie appeared to be the successful, respected, somewhat over-paid Captain of a commercial space liner.

In truth, it was 2025 – space liners did not yet exist, and the space liner Freedom was really just a very expensive set – a fancy simulator for wealthy clients the company took on simulated cruises into deep space to forget the real world for a while, to get away from it all – and they loved them for it!

In an atmosphere where people were locked away from reality for weeks at a time, and cos-playing and roleplaying redefined ‘normal’, telling fact and fantasy apart became more complicated than expected. For those who preferred the pleasant escape from the harsh realities of life outside, like Charlie, wishing it could all just be real became something almost like a prayer.

Andy Niksn, by contrast, was the very successful respected and somewhat over-paid Captain of an actual commercial space liner in the year 2773. Trouble was, Andy felt trapped! He was in a relationship – a dead-end partnership that had no future and promised both even less happiness. On top of that, his friend Jim had died recently, leaving Andy in the darkest place he’d ever been – and he didn’t mean space!

Andy wished he could just wake up to a different reality where everything could make sense again! For Andy, this too became something almost like a prayer!

As it turned out, someone heard them.

The answer wasn’t quite what they expected.”

Audiobooks

#gallery-0-15 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-15 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 25%; } #gallery-0-15 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-15 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

“All That Remains” JEA (2019)

“See Them Aliens” MBP (2019)

“Blachart” MBP (2020)

“When Darkness Calls” (2020)

“Demonspawn” MBP (2020)

On August 7th I received the completed audiobook of book 2 in the Galaxii series, “Demonspawn“, narrated (and dramatized) by Nigel Peever! The audiobook was finally released on August 31, and it was worth every minute I waited for it!

Nigel has also committed to narrating book 3 in Galaxii, after the five or so other books he has waiting in the queue, so he should only get round to that one somewhere around January ’21. In the meantime, that gives me time to work on Galaxii book 4! 😉

On August 20, “When Darkness Calls“, narrated by Miciah Dodge, was released via Audible! You can read more about it here.

Coming Soon

In the meantime, here’s a look at the covers for hot new audiobooks currently in the pipeline:

#gallery-0-16 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-16 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 25%; } #gallery-0-16 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-16 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

“Malice!” (2020) COMING SOON!

“Lifetime” (2020) COMING SOON!

Stay tuned for updates!

Reviews

You can see all my previous reviews here.

Currently Available Titles

I now have 30 unique titles available in 4 series (not including books I’ve been the editor for, and my 16 free promotional items)! My books are available in three different formats: EBooks, Paperbacks and Audiobooks. Click the links or images below to view titles available in these formats.

Communication

Below are links to a few of my most recent posts and articles since my last newsletter:

New Release: Demonspawn Audiobook

New Release: When Darkness Calls Audiobook

New Release: Horror Anthology V

Sinotec SJ86C LED Projector Review

New Release: Lifetime by Christina Engela

New Release: Mirror, Mirror by Christina Engela

“Demonspawn” Audiobook Now In For Review!

New Release: Lifetime by Christina Engela

Some Great Resources For Writers

Another Round At The Crow Bar #44 August 2020

If you want to see more articles, just click on the category links below:

Elements of Horror

FAQ Answered

Fun Facts

LGBT Heroes

The Tech Side

Secret Weapons of the Resistance

Writing Advice

Guest Writers

Newsletters

Interactions

Fan Mail, Reader Reviews & Honorable Mentions

I found the following awesome items to show you this month!

Great Book July 20, 2020 review on Audible for “Blachart” (audiobook):

Excellent story! “This is a very well written Sci-Fi tale that is told by an awesome narrator. I can’t wait to hear book 2!” – D. Sturgeon, Aug 13, 2020 on Audible for “Blachart” (audiobook).

Epic!!! “Another great tale told by narrator Nigel Peever. I look forward to the continuing Adventures of Blachart and Michael.” – Justin Bradley, Aug 16, 2020 on Audible for “Blachart” (audiobook).

Great Narrator “The story is pretty creepy, it takes place in South Africa. I’ve never heard haunting stories from this area. It’s a fun little story if you’re doing a drive on a dark night. The narration sounded excellent, and the protagonist in the story wasn’t taking no crap from the evil dead!” – Jeff Spencer, Aug 21, 2020 on Audible for “When Darkness Calls” (audiobook).

I display my Fan Mail, Reviews & Compliments with pride, gratitude and humility. You’re always welcome to have a look.

Hate Mail & Horrible Mentions

I’m rather proud of my hate mail, and you can review my collection here – but be forewarned, don’t do it while eating or drinking, or you might choke while laughing!

Interviews

All my interviews are linked to from this page. If you would like to do an interview with me about my work, please do get in touch!

In Closing

Well, that’s all for this time, folks! 🙂

Thanks again for all your support, friendship and interaction!

Feel free to email or message me via Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn if you have any comments or questions!

Until next time, keep reading!

Cheers! 🙂

Catch me on social media!

Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Academia | Minds | Instagram | GoodReads | Author’s Database | Library Thing | YouTube | Pintrest | Stage32 | The Book Marketing Network

If you would like to know more about Christina Engela and her writing, please feel free to browse her website.

If you’d like to send Christina Engela a question about her life as a writer or transactivist, please send an email to christinaengela@gmail.com or use the Contact form.

Show your appreciation for Christina’s work!

All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2020.

Another Round At The Crow Bar #45 September 2020 Hello friends and fans! Welcome to my 45th newsletter - September 2020!

[zombiebarbee]

The Sunday Times article

DEMON DAZE

After almost 30 years, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s comic fantasy Good Omens has made it to the screen – and in lavish fashion. Benji Wilson discovers how Pratchett’s dying wish came true

Heaven, as it turns out, is in an industrial park in Weybridge. The old Samsung building, with floor-to-ceiling windows and lighting so bright you have to squint, is the celestial set for Good Omens, the BBC and Amazon’s TV adaptation of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s beloved fantasy novel. The floor, in particular, is attracting attention from Jon Hamm, who plays the angel Gabriel.

“Did we put this floor in?” he asks, wearing a power suit and looking more Wall Street CEO than heavenly host. When he looks down, he sees his own face reflected. “I mean, who orders up a silver floor? Of all the choices.” Then an angel rides by on a hoverboard. “This,” Hamm says, “is insane.”

Much of Good Omens could be described that way. Were he alive, Terry Pratchett would probably delight in the description. It tells the story of an angel, Aziraphale, and a demon, Crowley, played by Michael Sheen and David Tennant respectively. They have been on Earth since the Garden of Eden, working for their opposing teams in heaven and hell, one lighting fires, the other putting them out. Over the centuries, they have become friends.

We first meet them as the Antichrist is being delivered to Earth – indeed, one of Crowley’s missions is to deliver the Antichrist to the maternity ward. But they both realise this means the end of humanity as we know it, and, as Tennant puts it, “Crowley and Aziraphale have quite a nice time on earth. They quite enjoy the dinners and the wine and the lifestyle.”

So they get together to decide they’re going to try to avert the apocalypse. “But it’s a comedy,” Sheen says. “It’s in the vein of Douglas Adams and Monty Python. When Neil sent me the first draft of the script, it reminded me of Whoops Apocalypse [Andrew Marshall and David Renwick’s 1982 ITV comedy set in the weeks leading up to the end of the world.] I remember watching that when I was a kid and finding it funny but also quite scary. It’s hard to know what my 14-year—old self would think of Good Omens, but I imagine it might be similar.”

This kind of tonal mash-up intermingling humanity’s most momentous concerns with the quotidian minutiae of “where did I leave my keys?”, is notoriously hard to pull off. For a start, there’s the scope of it: Good Omens has been in production since mid-2017 and has had to recreate not merely heaven and hell, but all of Christian history in between. The beginning of episode three features a sequence catching up with Aziraphale and Crowley at the Garden of Eden, Noah’s Ark, the crucifixion, ancient Rome, Shakespeare’s Globe, the crucible of the French Revolution and on, via the world wards, to the present. We see their relationship developing down the aeons. It’s all been done in less than 20 minutes.

“It’s basically a collection of single scenes,” Tennant says when I speak to him in a church in an Oxfordshire village. (He’s about to go outside and take delivery of the Antichrist.) “But for one of those scenes we got Shakespeare’s Globe for a day. For another, we transformed St James’s Park into Edwardian England for a day. For one scene. It’s fantastic to be able to work on something that has those sort of resources. You wouldn’t really be able to tell this story otherwise.”

Resources means Amazon’s money. That, and the allure of Gaiman’s writing, has drawn in a supporting cast including Frances McDormand as the voice of God, alongside Hamm, Jack Whitehall, Michael McKeen and Miranda Richardson. With a Game of Thrones-shaped hole to be filled, Good Omens is supposed to be a very big deal indeed.

Yet Gaiman, who co-wrote the original novel, adapted it for the screen and is the showrunner, would happily not have made it at all. “I didn’t really plan to give 18 months of my life to making a TV show. I’d much rather be writing novels. I would be making a lot more money writing novels. Nobody would be telling me what to do and my wife wouldn’t be complaining about not seeing me. But on the other hand, this,” he says, pointing at the shiny floor and Hamm running through lines as Gabriel, “was what Terry wanted to happen. And he’s not here.”

Good Omens was published in 1990. There followed almost 20 years of fruitless attempts to turn it into a film. Terry Gilliam received a prepublication copy of the book asking for a cover blurb. He misplaced the letter that came with it and thought he was being sent a story that might work for his next film. He loved it, but, as so often with Gilliam’s grand visions, Hollywood got in the way.

“Terry [Pratchett] and I decided that we wanted it to be television six years ago,” Gaiman says. “We went went looking for a writer – both of us were too busy – but basically we couldn’t find one.”

Pratchett died in March 2015. As he was overtaken by Alzheimer’s in his final years, he wrote Gaiman a letter – something he had never done before. “He said, ‘You’re the only other person out there with the same love and understanding and passion for this that I have. I know how busy you are, but I want to see this before the darkness takes me. Will you do this, please?’ In 35 years, he’d never asked me anything before. So I said yes. And then he died. So suddenly I was dealing with a last request. And I’m honouring it.”

Gaiman and Sheen have been friends since the actor mentioned in an interview about a decade ago that Gaiman was one of his favourite writers, across novels and comic books. Gaiman happened to read this, and sent Sheen a selection of special editions with a card saying “From one fan to another.” Since then, Sheen has appeared in Gaiman’s episode of Doctor Who, and now stars in Good Omens. Part of their friendship is based on a shared love of science fiction – Sheen only mentioned Gaiman in that interview in order to make a point about genre snobs. Many of his favourite writers, he said, worked in fantasy and SF.

Sheen says the snobbery still pertains - “If you’re of a mindset that anything written in a science-fiction context just can’t be great literature, then I don’t think anything is going to change your mind” - adding that there’s a similar prejudice against comedy as high art.

“Comedy films are always seen as impossible to be great films. They’re rarely winning Oscars. Good Omens ticks both boxes, comedy and fantasy – and I like that. When I was growing up, two of the biggest influences on me in terms of how I see art were The South Bank Show on TV and Kenneth Tynan, especially his profiles. Neither of them made a distinction between high and low art. One week is was Shostakovich , the next Billy Connolly. Tynan would profile Brecht, then Morecambe and Wise. I loved that.”

Just because Good Omens is funny, he goes on, doesn’t mean that it’s glib. “I was looking at a scene today when one of the angels says it’s been written that the end of the world begins with unrest in the Middle East, and the Antichrist is being taken to the Pains of Megiddo. I’ve seen that being written in newspaper articles – Isis are trying to engineer a situation where this battle takes place in a certain location because that’s ‘what was written’. People actually think that Trump is the coming of the Christ. Or the Antichrist. People are actually talking about this in fairly mainstream circles.

“That gives Good Omens a difficult context to when the book came out. You’ve got these two main characters who are very much in their own echo chambers – or should be. Yet the action of the piece requires them to break out of those bubbles.”

Tennant goes further. “We started making this in 2017. We knew it wouldn’t come out until 2019, and did wonder whether the apocalypse might have hastened towards us by then. It does give an added piquancy that the world might not be as stable as we thought it was a couple of years ago. By the time this article is printed, who knows where we’ll be?”

Good Omens is on Amazon Prime Video from May 31 and will air on BBC2 at the end of the year.

[johnhardinsawyer]

Favorable Conditions

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

10 / 22 / 17

Exodus 33:12-23

Psalm 99

“Favorable Conditions”[1]

(Into the Unknown – Part 7)

How are you feeling right now – about your life and the life of the world?  When you turn on the news, are things going favorably or not?  Seven months into a global pandemic and nearly forty-eight months into a presidential election, are you overwhelmed with positive feelings or. . .  other feelings?

Three years ago, in October of 2017, I preached on today’s story from the Book of Exodus, and I started the sermon by saying, “Two-thirds of Americans are stressed about the future. . .”[2]  This was part of a finding by the American Psychological Association.  Actually, the study said that “Two-thirds of Americans [regardless of political affiliation] are stressed about the future of the nation” and that the nation’s “stress index” – yes, apparently we have one of those – had its largest significant increase since the stress index was invented.  Now, I don’t believe that the American Psychological Association published this report just to drum up business.  Groups like that typically don’t play fast and loose with studies like this.  But I asked a licensed counselor back in 2017 how business was going and he said that it was booming.[3]  It still is.  At one point, in 2017, someone said to me, “You know. . . just about everybody I know seems to be having a hard time right now.”  People were anxious – stressed – about all kinds of things:  life, money, the country, the world, and the future.  If only we knew then what we know now. . .

Remember, all that was three years ago.  And, it would seem that things haven’t gotten much better in terms of people feeling stressed.  Back in July[4] of this year – 2020 –  76% of Democrats and 67% of Republicans polled by the American Psychological Association were feeling stress because of the amount of uncertainty in our nation.  A lot of this was being driven by the political climate.  And there is still so much that is unknown.  So, how are you feeling right now?  It’s like we’re all wandering around in the wilderness – not sure of what is coming next.          

Feeling stress about the unknown is not a new thing.  In today’s reading from the Book of Exodus, we find that Moses is stressed.  You might remember from last week that the Israelites were out in the wilderness and they were anxious because Moses had gone up a mountain to supposedly talk with God.  But Moses hadn’t been seen in quite some time and they thought he was dead, so they made an idol – a golden calf – and they bowed down to worship it.  Needless to say, the Lord was not pleased by this.  There was some punishment – a plague.  People died.[5]  And then the Lord told the people to go away – to leave for the so-called “Promised Land”:

“It’s a land flowing with milk and honey,” the Lord said.  “But I won’t be with you in person lest I destroy you on the journey.  You’re such a stubborn, hard-headed people!”  When the people heard this harsh verdict, they were plunged into gloom and wore long faces.[6]

No one’s face was longer and gloomier than Moses.  In today’s reading, Moses is having a full-blown crisis of self-doubt and anxiety and he has a conversation with God that is one of the most honest and blunt conversations recorded in the Bible.  I am paraphrasing here, but Moses says:

“Look, Lord, you have asked me to do this job – to lead your people to the land you promised – but now I’m not sure if you’re still going to help me do this.  We are your people, Lord.  If you don’t go with us, then don’t trouble yourself anymore with us.  You say we are your ‘chosen people.’  Your love for us – your promise to us – is what sets us apart from everyone else on earth.  But how will anyone else know that you love your people if you don’t come with us? ”[7]  “Are you going to be with us, God?  Are you going to be with me?”

This is the question asked by people of faith in times of uncertainty and hardship – during things like pandemics and long wilderness journeys – especially if you are Moses and are about to set out from a place where you know God is –  a place where you have been talking with God for days on end – and are headed into the miles and miles of bleak desert that lie between Mount Sinai and the Promised Land with thousands of people who may or may not like you, or trust you, or want to follow you.  There will be enemies on every side.  There will be heat and thirst and even death.  So, if you’re going to go out into the wilderness, it would be nice to have God go with you, wouldn’t it?

The Bible talks a lot about the wilderness.  Most of the biggest names in the Bible – from Abraham to David to Jesus – spend time out there.  The wilderness is a place of struggle and worry, a place of challenge and change, a place where you cannot rely on anyone or anything, except God.  If God isn’t going to go with you, then you’re sunk.  The wilderness is an in-between place and time.  You are coming from one certain place and are going toward another place that you’re hoping for.  But in the meantime, you are in neither place and the uncertainty of where you are can be very frightening.  

Sometimes, we are tempted to go back to where we came from – back to an old job or relationship or place – tempted to find some certainty, even if it’s bad, just to get out of the wilderness.  The Israelites were always remembering how “good” they had it back when they were slaves in Egypt, when they were asked to make too many bricks with too little material, and they were regularly beaten by their slave masters, and if they had any baby boys, their sons would be killed.  But at least things were predictable back in Egypt.  At least they knew what to expect.

Out in the wilderness, you don’t know what to expect.  And, at times like this, it is perfectly reasonable to wonder if God is with you.

Moses knows what is facing him and his people.  So he asks, “Are you going to go with me, God?  I really need to know.”  And then, God says,

Moses, my presence [my person, my face][8] will go with you, and I will give you rest [a resting place][9]. . .  I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.  (Exodus 33:14, 17)

The word that God uses, here – to find “favor” – is, in the original language, our word for “grace.”[10]

You know what “grace” is, right?  To be loved with a love that you do not deserve, to be shown unmerited favor that you cannot earn and you cannot repay.  Grace is a gift – given freely.  It is precious and mysterious – beyond us, and yet, at work within us.  And God gives this gift to us, and to Moses, and to all who turn to God in hope and faith, no matter how frail and fragile and failing that hope and faith might be.  One of the amazingly gracious things about God is the same gift of grace is lovingly and generously offered even to people who don’t turn to God in hope and faith.  God is just that gracious. . .  

Now, after all of Moses’ doubts and questions, you would think that the promise of God’s grace would help him breathe a sigh of relief.  God says that God will go with him, after all.  But Moses wants to make sure.  After all that God has done for Moses – all of the proof God has given (the burning bush, the plagues in Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, the destruction of the Egyptian army, the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night that the people follow, manna to eat every morning and birds to eat every night, water that flows from a rock when the people are thirsty, not to mention all of the time that Moses has spent one-on-one with God, talking) – Moses still wants more proof.  And so, he asks if he can see God with his own eyes.  “Show me your glory, I pray,” (33:18) Moses says.  And, I don’t know why God does this, but God says, “Okay, Moses. . .  Just this once, I’ll give you exactly what you want.  If you want to see me – if you want some kind of sign – I’ll show you.”  Now, God’s face – God’s presence – is so powerful that Moses can’t even look at it.  The full presence of God would kill him.  So God has to protect Moses by only giving Moses a glimpse of who God really is.  The story is a strange one – Moses hides behind some rocks and is able to glimpse God’s backside.[11]  But he is able to see God – to know that God is there.

What about us?  Do we need to “see” God to know that God is there?  Are we able to see God at all?  We do not live in a time and place where God speaks clearly out of a burning bush or leads us everywhere with a pillar of fire.  God isn’t speaking to us the way God spoke to Moses.  Instead, we have to take it on faith, and for many of us, our faith is challenged and tested, especially in wilderness times, stressful times – pandemic times – times filled with unknowns and uncertainties.  And so we want some kind of sign that God is there.

The good news is that God has given us far more than just a sign.  God has sent God’s own self.  God sends us Jesus – “God-with-us” – and, through him, have come to know what God’s grace – God’s loving favor – looks like:  Jesus, who came to bring good news to the poor, and sight to the blind, to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, heal the sick, calm the storm, forgive the sinner, welcome the prodigal, love the unlovable, die for the ungodly (even for us), and rise again for the life of the world. . .  Jesus, whom we see on the face and in the heart and soul of every living person. . .  Jesus, who saves us and knows us and calls us by name.

You know, it’s been over three years since that report about stress was published and I wish I could say that Americans are no longer stressed about anything.  But I know that’s not true.  

Believe me.  I.  Know.

There are days when the world looks bleak and life feels like the wilderness, even when you are a pastor.  But there is no wilderness that is so remote or frightening where God will not seek us out or choose again and again to be with us.  And, because of the wondrous favor of God, glimpses of the Holy can be an everyday occurrence, even out in the wilderness.  It is out in the wilderness – whatever our wilderness might be – where God has the ability to open our eyes to the reality that the Holy is really everywhere you look.

God is revealed to each of us in tiny glimpses and things remembered, in exuberant singing and full-bodied revelations, in times of great grief and times of great joy, in times of total surprise and times that are completely mundane, but filled with so much grace – a gift, a touch, a smile, a word, a song, light, and hope, and love, and peace.  And God is in all of it.  God is in all things – seen and unseen.  The Holy is in all of it.  May God grant us eyes to see, and ears to hear, and hearts and minds and souls to know. . .

May you live, trusting in the gracious mercy of the One who made you, the One who calls you by name, the One who is always with you – even. . . especially. . . out in the wilderness.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

------

[1] Using material from a sermon preached on October 22, 2017 called, “Are You There, God?  It’s Me. . .”

[2] http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/02/stressed-nation.aspx.

[3] D.R., October 17, 2017.

[4] https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2020/report-july.

[5] See Exodus 32.

[6] Eugene Peterson, The Message – Numbered Edition (Colorado Springs:  NAV Press, 2002) 122.  Reconfigured for the spoken word.  Exodus 33:3-4.

[7] Exodus 33:12-13, 15-16, paraphrased JHS.

[8] F. Brown, S. Driver, and C. Briggs, The Brown Driver Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Peabody:  Hendrickson Publishers, 1997) 815.

[9] Brown, Driver, and Briggs, 628.

[10] Brown-Driver-Briggs, 336.

[11] Brown, Driver, and Briggs, 30.  The word can be translated, “hinder side, back parts, or behind.”

[keywestlou]

ENGLISH PORNOGRAPHIC NOVEL BLAMED FOR TWO EARTHQUAKES

God punishes!

So many believe that most wrongs inflicted on the human race is God punishing sinners. Perhaps. I don’t buy it, however. God responsible for a child developing brain cancer? The holocaust?

Does not make sense to me.

Even today, certain religious leaders subscribe to the belief.

Let’s zero in on earthquakes.

In 1750, England suffered two severe earthquakes. One February 8 and the other one month later on March 8.

A pornographic novel had earlier been published. The Memoirs of Fanny Hill aka Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. Authored by a John Cleland.

Cleland was in prison and in need of money. Such drove him to write Fanny Hill.

Fanny Hill was the “first original English prose pornography, and the first pornography to use the form of the novel.” It has become one of the most prosecuted and banned books in history.

At the time of the two earthquakes, science was of the belief that such were caused by air pockets beneath the earth’s surface.

Thomas Sherlock was Bishop of London. He did not buy science’s reason as to the cause of earthquakes. Especially the two mentioned. He believed it was God punishing man for man’s wrongdoings.

In this instance, Fanny Hill. He considered Fanny Hill a “vile book, the lewdest thing I ever saw.”

The novel’s “heroine” Fanny Hill was a 15 year old girl in a London brothel. In a series of letters, she describes her life. One she liked. She wrote fondly of her experiences.

I read Fanny Hill. When I was in college. A copy of the book was floating around the dorm. By the time I got a hold of it, the pages were worn. I struggled through it.

An experience to have read! Especially at 19! Fanny’s activities could have caused an earthquake or two!

Lisa, my Lisa. I am proud of her. All the time.

She has created her own podcast. Kick In The Yes. kickintheyes.com.

Real stories of successes in life, love, and business. Sort of a “you can do it” thing.

Watch the podcast. You will enjoy and learn.

Family day. Want to mention my grandson Robert.

Robert is a tennis player. A sophmore at Key West High School, he is the team’s #1 player. So ranked. Remarkable for a sophmore.

The school played its first matches yesterday. Robert won all that he played in. Singles and doubles.

My grandson!

To something I have written and talked about frequently.

Irma blew through the lower keys September 10, 2017. Some 2 1/2 years ago. Recovery no where complete. In some areas, people still living in tents, without water, toilets, etc.

The federal government under Trump never completes what ever assistance it promises to provide. Which it is obligated to provide.

The State steps in. Florida in this instance. Even slower.

One and a half years ago, Florida announced an $812 million program. The money was appropriated. Its purpose to help people rebuild.

Thus far, only 10 properties State wide have been completed. In the keys, none have even been started.

Of the $812 million, only $21 million has been spent.

What the hell is the State doing with the money? Get it out! Put it to use! There are people still crying out and in need! Why isn’t “Help Me!” being heard?

I wrote recently how Keys spiny lobster fishermen are suffering because China has canceled its import of spiny lobsters due to the coronayvirus epidemic.

As a result, a lot of spiny lobsters remain unsold.

Another spiny lobster tale of woe. With an opposite effect, however.

A 400 pound goliath grouper is sitting off Key West shores in 12 feet of water. Eating spiny lobsters. “Like popcorn.”

Part of Key West’s history involves Ernest Hemingway. On this day in 1964, the Hemingway House was formally dedicated as a museum.

In many of its earlier days, Key West was replete with whore houses. Fishermen, salvagers, and sailors providing the business.

Mom, her name otherwise unknown to me, operated 3 houses of ill repute in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Two in Key West and 1 on Stock Island.

Busy day and night.

The authorities kept closing Mom’s down. The local authorities did it. Reluctantly so, however. It was the U.S. Navy that pushed them to do it.

The Navy considered places like Mom’s neither popular nor proper with the “good people.” The Navy was also concerned with the venereal diseases its doctors had to deal with because of the establishments.

One of Mom’s working girls was not a happy camper. Why, I do not know. However, on this day in 1941 she overdosed and died. An apparent suicide.

Her name Cecelia Thompson Trunks.

Tino time.

Tino played an extra in a TV show that took place in either a U.S. Mexican neighborhood or Mexico itself. Tino played the part of a street peddler with cart selling polita. Mexican ice cream.

The New Hampshire Democratic Primary Debate last night.

The 7 participants all good. My sense is Sanders and Mayor Pete will come out 1 and 2. Not sure in which order.  Biden did well. Very well. However, I am not sure he can overcome the down slide he has been experiencing.

The moderators impressed me. ABC. They gave the candidates the opportunity to speak. Did not cut them off. When a topic, such as health care, was on a run, they let the candidates play it out. The moderators did not interrupt or cut the candidates off for any reason.

ABC treated the 7 candidates for what they were. Persons seeking the Presidency of the United States. Respect was shown.

I don’t want a President who is revengeful. Trump is. Too much so.

Yesterday, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was walked out of the White House. His brother a Lt. Col. also.

Ambassador Gordon Sonderland was called back from Europe.

In a sense, I cannot blame Trump. These persons spoke out against him. Did not support him. Did not lie for him.

I would want them out also if I were President. But do it with dignity and class. Two attributes Trump is lacking, however.

Whose head falls next?

Trump had a medal placed on Russ Limbaugh during the State of the Union. Wrong move! Vindman should have received the medal, not Limbaugh.

Syracuse/Wake Forest at 8 tonight.

Enjoy your day!

  ENGLISH PORNOGRAPHIC NOVEL BLAMED FOR TWO EARTHQUAKES was originally published on Key West Lou

[thenatureofpages]

Tweet Cute: An Absolutely Adorable Rom-Com for the Ages

*Disclaimer: I received this book as an ARC courtesy of both St. Martin’s in exchange for participating in the blog tour.

Tweet Cute by Emma Lord

A Non-Spoilery Review by The Nature of Pages

Genre: YA Contemporary

Favorite Quote(s):

Pepper smiles, then—actually smiles, instead of the little smirk she usually does. It’s not startling, but what it does to me in that moment kind of is.

Before I can examine the unfamiliar lurch in my stomach, the bell rings and knocks the smile right off her face.

Synopsis:

Meet Pepper, swim team captain, chronic overachiever, and all-around perfectionist. Her family may be falling apart, but their massive fast-food chain is booming — mainly thanks to Pepper, who is barely managing to juggle real life while secretly running Big League Burger’s massive Twitter account. 

Enter Jack, class clown and constant thorn in Pepper’s side. When he isn’t trying to duck out of his obscenely popular twin’s shadow, he’s busy working in his family’s deli. His relationship with the business that holds his future might be love/hate, but when Big League Burger steals his grandma’s iconic grilled cheese recipe, he’ll do whatever it takes to take them down, one tweet at a time. 

All’s fair in love and cheese — that is, until Pepper and Jack’s spat turns into a viral Twitter war. Little do they know, while they’re publicly duking it out with snarky memes and retweet battles, they’re also falling for each other in real life — on an anonymous chat app Jack built. 

As their relationship deepens and their online shenanigans escalate — people on the internet are shipping them?? — their battle gets more and more personal, until even these two rivals can’t ignore they were destined for the most unexpected, awkward, all-the-feels romance that neither of them expected.

Rating: 5 Stars

What Made This Book Unique:

Where do I even start? The fast-paced banter of the characters, the incredible twitter war, from start to end this book is a rom-com for the ages.

Okay, buckle in because not only was this one of my favorite reads of the year, this is one of my favorite reads of all time. *fangirls screeches*

The characters. The characters. Holy cow, everyone, I was rooting for the characters from page one. Pepper, type A perfectionist is so incredibly easy to relate to, from her desire to keep everything under control to the cute baking moments we get to see. She’s also a blogger, so that’s super neat! Books with bloggers in them are my weakness.

Our favorite soft class clown boy Jack is so easy to find adorable, y’all. He’s genuinely funny and had me laughing out loud as I read his sections. The internal sarcastic comments we get from his point of view are so great – it’s a battle of wits with these two.

Also, they’re all Hufflepuffs??? Can we all screech heck yes in unison?!

I’m such an absolute dork for this book that I actually had the opportunity to interview the author herself, Emma Lord!

Our new writing royalty herself!

Hi, Emma! Thank you so much for letting me ask you a few questions!

Q: Did the plot or the characters come to you first when writing this novel?

A: This one was an odd one for me because the plot came LONG before the characters, in the form of a tweet I made in 2017 joking that there should be a rom-com about social media managers from warring fast food chains falling in love. Usually I’ll think of a character first and build plot around them, but I had to go through about five iterations of characters before landing on Pepper and Jack. 

Q: What was your favorite part about the process of writing Tweet Cute?

A: For sure writing with my friends! We try to meet up once a week and are constantly bopping around in the group chat. I wrote Tweet Cute in a month and a half while holding down a full-time job, so my brain was basically just leaking memes by the end of it, but those sessions we spent writing in coffee shops after work were my best memories of the process. 

Q: As a debut author, what was a surprise when it came to writing your book?

Uh, people READING it. That was profoundly surprising to me. Like, logistically you understand that people are going to read it if it’s getting published, but usually I’ll write something, stick it on a fan fiction platform anonymously, and that’ll be the end of it. I’m still not over the surprise any time someone reads the book and tags me in something about it! 

As you can see, Emma Lord is not only a fantastically wonderful writer, she’s also incredibly sweet! Make sure to check my Twitter (@natureofpages) as the month goes on – I’ll be reposting other blog posts with her other interviews as they get posted!

Hopefully by now, you’re as excited to read this book as I was, so here’s a sneak peak!

JACK

“Look.” I glance into the classroom, where Ethan is thoroughly distracted by Stephen and no longer keeping an eye on us. “I may have . . . overreacted.”

Pepper shakes her head. “I told you. I get it. It’s your family.”

“Yeah. But it’s also—well, to be honest, this has been kind of good for business.”

Pepper’s brow furrows, that one little crease returning. “What, the tweets?”

“Yeah.” I scratch the back of my neck, sheepish. “Actually, we had a line out the door yesterday. It was kind of intense.”

“That’s . . . that’s good, right?”

The tone of my voice is clearly not matching up with the words I’m saying, but if I’m being honest, I’m still wary of this whole overnight business boom. And if I’m being honest, I’m even more wary of Pepper. If this really is as much of a family business as she claims it is—to the point where she’s helping run the Twitter handle, when even I know enough about corporate Twitter accounts to know entire teams of experienced people get paid to do that—then she might have had more of a hand in this whole recipe theft thing than she’s letting on.

The fact of the matter is, I can’t trust her. To the point of not knowing whether I can even trust her knowing how our business is doing, or just how badly we need it.

“Yeah, um, I guess.” I try to make it sound noncommittal. My acting skills, much like my breakfast-packing skills, leave much to be desired.

“So . . .”

“So.”

Pepper presses her lips into a thin line, a question in her eyes.

“So, I guess—if your mom really wants you to keep tweeting . . .”

“Wait. Yesterday you were pissed. Two minutes ago you were pissed.”

“I am pissed. You stole from us,” I reiterate. “You stole from an eighty-five-year-old woman.”

“I didn’t—”

“Yeah, yeah, but still. You’re them, and I’m . . . her. It’s like a choose your fighter situation, and we just happen to be the ones up to bat.”

“So you’re saying—you don’t not want me to keep this up?”

“The way I see it, you don’t have to make your mom mad, and we get a few more customers in the door too.”

Pepper takes a breath like she’s going to say something, like she’s going to correct me, but after a moment, she lets it go. Her face can’t quite settle on an expression, toeing the line between dread and relief.

“You’re sure?”

I answer by opening the container she handed me. The smell that immediately wafts out of it should honestly be illegal; it stops kids I’ve never even spoken to in their tracks.

“Are you a witch?” I ask, reaching in and taking a bite of one. It’s like Monster Cake, the Sequel—freaking Christmas in my mouth. I already want more before I’ve even managed to chew. My eyes close as if I’m experiencing an actual drug high—and maybe I am, because I forget myself entirely and say, “This might even be better than our Kitchen Sink Macaroons.”

“Kitchen Sink Macaroons?”

Eyes open again. Yikes. Note to self: dessert is the greatest weapon in Pepper’s arsenal. I swallow my bite so I can answer her.

“It’s kind of well-known, at least in the East Village. It even got in some Hub Seed roundup once. I’d tell you to try some, but you might steal the recipe, so.”

Pepper smiles, then—actually smiles, instead of the little smirk she usually does. It’s not startling, but what it does to me in that moment kind of is.

Before I can examine the unfamiliar lurch in my stomach, the bell rings and knocks the smile right off her face. I follow just behind her, wondering why it suddenly seems too hot in here, like they cranked the air up for December instead of October. I dismiss it by the time I get to my desk—probably just all the Twitter drama and the glory of So Sorry Blondies getting to my head.

“One rule,” she says, as we sit in the last two desks in the back of the room.

I raise my eyebrows at her.

“We don’t take any of it personally.” She leans forward on her desk, leveling with me, her bangs falling into her face. “No more getting mad at each other. Cheese and state.”

“What happens on Twitter stays on Twitter,” I say with a nod of agreement. “Okay, then, second rule: no kid gloves.”

Mrs. Fairchild is giving that stern look over the room that never quite successfully quiets anyone down. Pepper frowns, waiting for me to elaborate.

“I mean—no going easy on each other. If we’re going to play at this, we’re both going to give it our A game, okay? No holding back because we’re . . .”

Friends, I almost say. No, I’m going to say. But then—

“I’d appreciate it if even one of you acknowledged the bell with your silence,” Mrs. Fairchild grumbles.

I turn to Pepper, expecting to find her snapping to attention the way she always does when an adult comes within a hundred feet of disciplining her. But her eyes are still intent on me, like she is sizing something up—like she’s looking forward to something I haven’t anticipated yet.

“All right. No taking it personally. And no holding back.”

She holds her hand out for me to shake again, under the desk so Mrs. Fairchild won’t see it. I smile and shake my head, wondering how someone can be so aggressively seventeen and seventy-five at the same time, and then I take it. Her hand is warm and small in mine, but her grip is surprisingly firm, with a pressure that almost feels like she’s still got her fingers wrapped around mine even after we let go.

I turn back to the whiteboard, a ghost of a smirk on my face. “Let the games begin.”

*flails* AAAAHHHHH so many feels just from that snippet alone!

Tweet Cute is such an adorable cute rom-com, full of witty banter, spectacular characters, a ship name to die for, and a hilarious Twitter war! I, for one, will be heading to the book store the day it comes out and already can’t wait for the next Emma Lord book!

Tweet Cute by Emma Lord is hitting the shelves on January 21st, 2020!

from WordPress https://ift.tt/364nfiC via IFTTT

[sophronisba]

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

2019 could have been written by Gary Shteyngart. The president tried to buy Greenland this year. Who could have imagined reading that sentence four years ago? In 2019 the septuagenarian president’s staff photoshopped his head onto the body of a young Sylvester Stallone and then got all huffy when none of us believed it was real. In 2019 an Oscar-nominated actress went to prison for paying someone to sweeten her daughter’s SAT score. 2019 gave us an eight-way tie for first in the National Spelling Bee. Twenty-eight different people decided to run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2019.1 In 2019 Jeffrey Epstein–credibly accused of sex-trafficking minors to a number of high-profile men–died while in police custody, spawning a thousand different conspiracy theories that spanned the entire political spectrum.2 Britain and Israel both spent most of 2019 trying to sort out who should run the countries and neither of them seem to have come up with a satisfactory answer, although Britain did manage to find time in its busy schedule to yell at its newest duchess–a biracial divorced American–for various imagined transgressions. In 2019 someone inexplicably agreed to marry Stephen Miller.3 And it wasn’t just the news that was weird: in 2019 my personal life was also extremely–well, let’s just say eventful. In April, right before the Game of Thrones premiere, my husband and I were smugly congratulating ourselves on weathering some family medical storms when we got a phone call that sent everything spiraling into chaos all over again.4 And still there was more: If you had told me on January 1 of 2019 that in less than a year I would be living in a different house in a different city with a different job, I would not have believed you. And yet here we are. And so in 2019 I used reading mostly as an escape: with a couple of exceptions, I responded most strongly to non-fiction that allowed me to imagine a different reality and fiction that held out the prospect of a happy ending or, failing that, that offered me a pleasantly whimsical world to inhabit for a few hours. 2019 was not a year when I went in search of deep character development or narrative realism or emotional truth. In 2019 I wanted to play pretend. Do not take that to mean that my favorite books of the year offered nothing more than escapism. No, the best books gave me everything: a different world, yes, but also beautiful prose and vividly drawn characters and original thoughts that made me put the book down and stare dreamily into the distance. What these books all have in common is that I’m still thinking about them now, weeks or months after I read them. The list, in the order that I read the books:

Bowlaway, by Elizabeth McCracken. It’s about candlepin bowling, and family, and marriage, and love. Some people didn’t like it because it isn’t super-plotty, but I loved hanging out with McCracken’s characters

L. E. L.: The Lost Life and Scandalous Death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the Celebrated “Female Byron”, by Lucasta Miller. If you read Miller’s The Bronte Myth, then you know to expect great things from her latest. I have never been a scandalous woman, to my eternal regret, but this book let me imagine what it might be like to be one.

Golden State, by Ben Winters. I have been a Ben Winters fan since his Last Policeman trilogy. In this book he pays as much attention to plot and story as he does to world-building and the result is a captivating thriller in a world where lying is one of the most serious crimes you can commit.

City of Girls, by Elizabeth Gilbert. Look, I get it, Gilbert is not everyone’s cup of tea. But I love her characters and I found this book wildly engaging, a story about a fun, naughty girl who unashamedly loves sex. It reminded me a bit of Sarah Waters’s Tipping the Velvet, but to be totally honest, I enjoyed this one more.

The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation, by Brenda Wineapple. Does impeachment even matter if the president is not removed? In this account of the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, Wineapple makes the case that it does. She must have started this book before January 2017, because there’s a lot of research here — but it still made for awfully comforting reading while the debate over the current president’s impeachment swirled.

The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood. A follow-up to Atwood’s classic novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Is there a bit too much fan service in this novel? Does Atwood channel Katniss Everdeen to an excessive degree? Yes and yes. I loved it anyway. I liked the way Atwood bounced off the television series, making some plot points canon while refashioning others, and you know what, the hopeful ending may not be realistic but I’ll take it.

Sontag: Her Life and Work, by Benjamin Moser. There are few things I love more than big fat literary biographies. This one is smart and insightful and well-written, and will make you–as Jamaica Kincaid says–never want to be great. Sontag was a marvelous writer who was also a toxic parent, friend, and lover, and this book will make you consider, among other things, whether the one was worth the other.

Olive, Again, by Elizabeth Strout. OK, this one wasn’t escapism so much. On the other hand I think this is the first time I’ve ever had a best book list with two sequels on it.5 Maybe in 2019 I was trying to travel back in time? At any rate, this is Strout’s follow-up to Olive Kitteridge, a collection of short stories centering on one difficult woman that was my favorite book of 2008. The first book was insightful about love and marriage; this one is insightful about old age, loneliness, and coming to terms with yourself as you approach the end of your life.

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, by Patrick Radden Keefe. This is a pretty amazing account of a murder in 1972 that would only be solved thirty-plus years later. I cared about the victim, and I especially cared about her children, and I even found myself caring for the murderers. Along the way I learned a great deal about the IRA and “The Troubles,” about which I knew virtually nothing before.

The Enigma of Clarence Thomas, by Corey Robin. I have been angry at Clarence Thomas since I watched his hearings in my dorm room in 1991.6 Now that I have read Robin’s analysis of Thomas’s judicial philosophy, I am not less angry, but I do take Thomas more seriously as a thinker. Robin’s argument is that far from being a faint echo of Antonin Scalia, Thomas has developed his own strain of conservatism grounded in black nationalism. Maybe this is not an uncommon thesis among Supreme Court watchers–I don’t read legal journals so I don’t know–but it was new to me and I found it fascinating. Another book that wasn’t really an escape to a different world, but there’s nothing I like more than a fresh perspective on a subject I thought I’d made up my mind about.

1 Although that may seem like a humorous exaggeration, it is the actual number. 2 I have to be honest, you guys, I think he probably killed himself. 3 This seems like a life mistake on par with marrying Anthony Weiner, but the heart wants what it wants. 4 Pro tip: Never smugly congratulate yourself on weathering a storm! It only tempts the universe. 5 It’s probably also the first time my list has featured three Elizabeths, but I haven’t actually checked. 6 I am also still mad at Joe Biden for the way those hearings were run, but that’s a story for another day.

My very favorite books that were published in 2019, featuring two sequels and three Elizabeths. 2019 could have been written by Gary Shteyngart. The president tried to buy Greenland this year. Who could have imagined reading that sentence four years ago?

[limeadestandworks]

Forget social media marketing! Like, now!

In 2017, social media marketing has become almost a cliche. People are talking today as if every business somehow has to have a Facebook page at the time when many people are leaving Facebook.

It is a bit reminiscent of 20 years ago, in 1997, every mom-and-pop business in town was on the website and domain name bandwagon. Never mind their websites mostly sucked, many of them little more than a picture, cheesy animated GIFs, street address, and phone number. At the time, saying “visit our homepage” and “dot com” made every business owner feel like they were cutting edge.

While the Internet indeed made it possible for thousands of micro-entrepreneurs to launch and grow their businesses with a low capital requirement (eBay and PayPal were instrumental!), to others, it has become a waste of time and money. Cheap websites soon gave way to the SEO fad of the mid to late 2000s, and now we have social media marketing, seen by many as the magic formula in which anyone can make it big for free. After all, it’s free to use Facebook and everyone has a Facebook, not? (Yes, I have said before that Facebook became the de facto “White Pages” of our time — people do indeed look up business contact information through Facebook search; however, as with the White Pages phone books, they have to know the exact name of your business for this to work.)

If you are even moderately interested in entrepreneurship, you must have seen various Facebook ads or direct emails touting the latest success blueprint in social media marketing. They say you can reach millions and you can make a six-figure income in a year or less.

Forget it.

In fact, if that’s what you think, forget social media marketing altogether. Get off the Internet, hit the pavement, and do your marketing the old-fashioned way like in the 1980s.*

Social media aren’t a supernatural dragnet to attract prospects and customers with little efforts and no money. What these “experts” conveniently forget to tell you is this: (1) it is pretty expensive to reach literally millions — indeed, they spend hundreds of dollars every week so you see their ads; (2) social media marketing is an engagement tool, and it works remarkably well if and only if you have a substantial following and/or brand awareness — as a new entrepreneur, you have neither (ultimately, you will have to buy a traffic to create any level of brand awareness).

A typical Facebook page post generally results in 1 to 2 percent of organic reach (meaning free exposures) — to those who are already following your page. If you have a small business Facebook page with less than 100 “likes,” it is common that many of your page posts do not even reach one person (you can check this by looking at your page statistics). For those who already know your business or brand, to reach them better, I recommend you to start a Facebook group.

Instagram and Twitter have different dynamics altogether. While you may get more “likes” it is a short-attention-span platform and each post has a very short lifespan (approximately 18 minutes for a Tweet). Getting people engaged requires you to make them click a link to your blog, website, or landing page (on Instagram, you can only do this on your biography, or must purchase advertising through Facebook to insert a “call to action” link below your photo and above your caption).

The gist of all this is this: social media marketing is not necessarily a great tool to reach complete strangers who have never heard of your business. For a locally-based micro business to reach new customers and prospects, traditional advertising media work more effectively. If you live in a small town, be sure to send press releases to your small-town newspaper regularly, attend any local chamber of commerce events, and make real-life person-to-person connections. Advertising in a neighborhood newspaper or niche-specific magazine can also be effective.

More importantly, do not ever forget this: all marketing is relationship building. Insofar as you utilize social media as an extension of relationship-building and fostering positive connections, it’s useful and can even be very powerful. But too many people mistake social media and any digital marketing efforts as something anonymous, something you can do hiding behind your computer and broadcast your sales pitch.

Social media isn’t broadcasting. If you want to broadcast, buy a radio ad.

By design, social media (and the Internet in general) are “narrow-casting” appealing to a small set of the population who shares specific affinity and interests. This is true with Facebook ads, Google AdWords, and even your own website and blogs. Reaching millions — or even 100,000 — should never be your objective. Instead, you think of your hypothetical customer prototype, and craft your message to appeal to that person.

When people respond to your social media ads or posts by commenting, reposting, or liking, be sure to engage. Answer their questions and concerns promptly. Start conversations. Let them know that there is a real living, breathing person behind your digital marketing presence, and you actually care about what they have to say.

In the early days of the popularized Internet, we spoke of “cyber-malls,” “information superhighway,” and “global villages.” We thought of the Internet as a digital incarnation (or, discarnation?) of the real world. And even with the Internet, much of real transactions took place offline. It was common back then for people to sign up online for paper newsletters, which one would mail them every month.

I reiterate: there is no such thing as “social media marketing” if not for creating and cultivating relationships.

Just because you post your sales pitch on Facebook or Twitter every day doesn’t mean you’re marketing. It’s not working for you, so just forget it, stop fooling yourself into thinking that you’re working hard by spending lots of hours on social media. Instead, use social media with genuine intentions to engage in conversations and help people.

A case study of how old-fashioned guerrilla advertising creates brand awareness for new microenterprises

Since I told readers to forget social media and hit the pavement, I’d like to present one example of how going offline could be more effective in generating brand awareness for a small, no-budget micro business.

A year ago, I lived in Southeast Portland and there was a coffee house that was my favorite hangout. This place still looks and feels like a throwback to the Portland of the 1990s. One day I saw a postcard that looked like handmade (actually it was a full-color reproduction of a handmade artwork) that featured an adorable drawing of cats and a girl-with-a-happy-face with a caption that read “PDX Cat Stalker.”

Over the following weeks, I saw the same artwork reproduced on letter-size paper (black and white) and stapled to electrical poles all over the neighborhood.

The ad was simple in its message: a veterinary technician offering cat claw clipping and cat-sitting services. The former is a big challenge for many cat lovers, while those who travel a lot always are in need for someone to feed and care for their felines.

While the business had a Gmail address and a domain name registered, brand awareness was built primarily on the ground as the owner literally hit the pavement, dropped off stacks of postcards at various high-traffic and high-visibility neighborhood haunts and stapled fliers onto poles and bulletin boards. Social media only followed after this as engagement tools (mostly featuring cat pictures, of course).

But what is the cleverest of all is the brand. You know of crazy cat ladies. But imagine a cat stalker! Just the mental imagery the phrase evokes is incredibly potent. And it happens that the owner of this feline care business is named Sophia Stalker (the “professional cat lady”).

(Originally published on May 9, 2017.)

[mysteryshelf]

BLOG TOUR - Genocide

Welcome to

THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF Seeking Summer Reads Week!

DISCLAIMER: This content has been provided to THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF by Partners in Crime Book Tours. No compensation was received. This information required by the Federal Trade Commission.

Genocide

by Pat Krapf

on Tour June 1-30, 2017

Synopsis:

Sean Ireland, the first gay presidential candidate in US history, is guaranteed the election—until he’s found dead at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.

Stunned by her friend’s murder, private investigator Darcy McClain is determined to hunt down Sean’s killer. In shock, she returns home to find someone has broken into her home, assaulted her sister, and stolen Bullet, her giant schnauzer.

After Sean’s death, more grisly murders follow, leading the police to suspect a serial killer, but Darcy isn’t convinced. In the course of her investigation, she’s astounded to discover evidence of a high-level government conspiracy to exterminate gays and lesbians. Is Sean’s murder tied to this conspiracy? Could someone in the government have killed him? Darcy vows to track down her friend’s murderer, save Bullet, and discover the truth.

Krapf weaves a captivating tale that will leave readers wanting more of Darcy McClain’s shrewd investigative adventures as she and her bold canine sidekick, Bullet, navigate the clever plot twists in her thrillers.

Book Details:

Genre: Technothriller Published by: Thunder Glass Press Publication Date: June 2017 Number of Pages: 502 ISBN: 978-1-941300-05-3 Series: A Darcy McClain and Bullet Thriller, #3 (These are Stand Alone titles) Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Read an excerpt:

Chapter 1

Darcy rose at dawn, descended the stairs two at a time, and yanked open the front door, eager to read the headlines of her morning Chronicle. She scooped the newspaper off the walk and chuckled as she saw the faces of her two friends plastered across the front page. Never had she been so absorbed in a presidential election.

Before she headed back indoors, she paused to survey the quiet cul-de-sac with its houses stacked close together, their gray outlines awash in the jaundiced glow of the streetlights. No one stirred in the neighborhood. Too early. Even the local cat who loved to sleep on the front porch was nowhere in sight.

A light breeze kicked up. Dead leaves cartwheeled over mowed lawns, and the cold spray from the neighbor’s automatic sprinklers misted her from head to toe. She dodged a second dousing and ducked into the house, collecting Charlene’s skateboard as she entered the foyer.

Freshly brewed coffee drew her to the kitchen. She poured a cup and slid onto the window seat in the breakfast nook to devour every word of the three-page article. Most of the content she already knew, but she never tired of reading about Governor Sean Ireland and Senator Magdalena “Mags” Cortés. Even though Darcy thought she knew her friends, the past few months had brought one shocking piece of information after another. In all the years Darcy had known Sean—dating back to their college days at Stanford Law School—not once had he ever alluded to running for the presidency. When he became governor of California, he claimed he was more than satisfied with his current role and had no intention of running for any other office. Yet a year ago, he declared his candidacy, and in a bold (and some said premature) move, announced his vice presidential candidate, Senator Mags Cortés. Mags and the Latino community had a long-standing love affair, and pundits predicted she would sweep seventy percent of their vote.

While it came as a surprise Sean aspired to be president, it was no revelation Mags was his vice presidential pick. Separately, the two possessed the talent and power to accomplish anything they set their minds to. Together, The Formidable Two, as they had been dubbed by the press, packed an unbeatable punch. Before the election campaign had even started, their opponents admitted their own victory would not come easily, if at all.

Only one factor bothered the American public: the personal relationship between Sean and Mags. Not everyone was keen on the idea of a presidential candidate and his VP running mate potentially marrying. “Conflict of interest,” the opposition protested publicly and frequently, for most assumed the lifelong friends and reported sweethearts would marry one day. Neither refuted the rumors, so they persisted for years—until last month’s press conference, when both had dropped mind-blowing bombshells.

In a secret ceremony, Mags had married billionaire Gaspar Cruz. At the time of her “bolt from the blue,” as the press called it, she and hubby had been married more than six months. But Mags’s revelation paled in comparison with Sean’s shocker: a public proclamation of his sexuality. The majority of his constituents thought the decision to come out was political suicide, but they were wrong. Instead, he clinched the majority of the gay and lesbian vote and won over those who trended liberal, and because of his exemplary track record as senator and then governor, most conservatives chose to overlook his orientation in favor of his ability to bring about real change in government—a talent already proven at the state level.

The mudroom door opened and shut, cutting into Darcy’s thoughts. Charlene strolled into the kitchen with Bullet. The giant schnauzer frogged out on the tiled floor while her sister washed a handful of herbs picked fresh from their garden. Charlene looked relaxed in floral yoga pants, a pink sweatshirt, and pink flip-flops. She wore her long brown hair swept into a ponytail, and a pink headband kept the loose strands away from her oval face. Today her fingernails and toenails sparkled with pink polish.

Darcy inspected her own fingernails, next her toes. Maybe she should take a cue from Charlene and invest in a manicure and pedicure. Or a trip to the salon for highlights. She glanced at her sister. No, one high-maintenance person in the family was enough.

Charlene lowered her sunglasses and leveled her hazel eyes at Darcy. “You aren’t reading about that campaign again, are you?”

Darcy folded the newspaper. “I am.”

Charlene opened the refrigerator door and began setting items on the countertop in preparation for the brunch she promised to fix while on spring break from Stanford. “I’ve never seen you so absorbed in an election. Sean should hire you as his campaign manager. Do you think he stands a chance? Being gay, that is.”

Often her sister took the opposing view simply to create conflict or to get a rise out of Darcy, but today she refused to bite. “Why not? We’ve had a black president and a Catholic president, so why not a gay president with a Hispanic VP? What I care about is his ability and whether he has the intestinal fortitude and bipartisan support to do the job he pledged to do.”

“He’s certainly made a great governor.”

“Yes, he has. By the way, thanks for fixing brunch . . . on your first day of vacation.”

“Better to do it today or I’ll be off doing a gazillion other things and will forget completely.” She placed her hands on her hips. “Tell me, when do you plan to move into the digital age? As in ditch the newspaper and read it online?”

“Never. I love the smell of newsprint in the morning.”

Metal clanged.

Bullet cocked his head.

Charlene frowned. “Mail? At this hour?”

Light spilled across the entry. An envelope sailed through the mail slot and landed on the tile. In a barking frenzy, Bullet scooted off the floor and limped into the foyer.

Darcy sprang out of her seat and snatched up the letter before Bullet could pounce on it. Baffled by the early delivery, she flung open the front door. “Stay.” Bullet sat. Darcy jogged to the curb and glanced down Mandalay Lane, expecting to see a courier or a departing vehicle of some kind, but the neighborhood of mostly elderly people still slept.

She examined the envelope. Plain white and nothing written on the outside. No courier service had delivered it. She ripped the seal with her fingernail and removed a card along with a check. The note read, “Meet me. 9:00 a.m. Palace of Fine Arts.” No date?

She flipped the check over and whistled low and long. Why would Sean write her a check for 250 grand? A retainer, no less—for the word was scrawled in the memo section. And why hadn’t he rung the bell and stopped in for coffee, or at least for an explanation?

On her way back into the house, she petted Bullet on the head and said, “Good boy,” releasing him from his stay.

The hall clock chimed as she locked the front door. She had better get moving if she planned to be home in time for brunch. And, she was dying to hear why Sean had written her a retainer for a quarter of a million dollars.

“Time to go.” Darcy placed the check and note in the writing desk in the kitchen.

“You haven’t been for your run?”

“Too busy reading the paper. Need anything from the store? Nothing big, of course.”

“Nope,” said Charlene. “I have everything planned, including dessert. Oh, and I gave Bullet his meds for his cut paw.”

“Thanks.” Darcy wiggled into a nylon Windbreaker, grabbed her water bottle off the butcher block, and kissed Bullet between the eyes. He followed her into the mudroom and waited expectantly at the side door that opened onto the driveway. She hated leaving him behind, but the vet had said no running until the cut on his pad healed. She latched the screen door and tested the handle. Lately, Bullet had gotten into the habit of letting himself out of the house. As she walked down the drive, his whines tugged at her heart.

Darcy warmed up with a slow jog as she left Mandalay for Lombard—the most crooked street in the city—and raced up the steep stairs, her knees pumping high, clearing each step with ease.

Leaving Lombard, she sprinted onto Hyde, and ran at a lung-bursting speed toward the fog-shrouded streets of Fisherman’s Wharf. On the harbor, she shot down the waterfront and quickly approached the docks, the slips veiled in white. Although she couldn’t see many of the yachts or sailboats that bobbed in the water, she heard the lap of the surf against their sides and the rasp of metal against wood as they tugged at their moorings.

She peeled away from one pier after another, until the Ferry Building came into view. She reached it and slowed a bit, mindful of the crowds of city workers pouring from the boat terminal, everyone in a hurry to reach their jobs in the downtown districts. She conducted a U-turn, and flew back up the Embarcadero, cutting her normal route short so she wouldn’t miss Sean.

At Pier 23 Charlene crept into Darcy’s mind. Her sister’s friendship with Vicky Lord, a young woman Darcy distrusted, continued to worry her. She had hoped that once Vicky and Charlene no longer roomed together at Stanford, the two would go their separate ways. But no. Vicky had rented a house near campus and had asked Charlene to move in rent-free. In every aspect, Vicky spelled trouble. Dan Gruet, Darcy’s former partner at the FBI, called the tattooed and pierced kid Wild Child.

Darcy’s thoughts skipped from Charlene to Sean’s double shocker. What had prompted him to come out now? “Honesty,” he had said. And what had triggered this sudden decision to run for the highest office in the land? Even more of a mystery, why did he want to hire her and for what, especially at a quarter of a million dollars? She couldn’t think of what service she could be to him.

Her favorite pier came into view. She sidestepped a man power washing the sidewalks and maneuvered around a refrigerator truck parked at the rear of a chowder house. From Pier 39 rose the sharp barks of sea lions. She circled the jetty, sucking in the salty air and pausing briefly to bid a silent good morning to the noisy mammals she had grown so fond of. Life was good. The tension in her neck eased as she again bore down on Fisherman’s Wharf.

Easy, methodical strides propelled her past the shops and restaurants waking to another day. She steered clear of milling tourists, navigated around a group of cyclists, and avoided a collision with a rollerblader preoccupied with texting. Two hours earlier, her normal run time, she would have owned the wharf. Few people appeared before dawn.

Maintaining a steady pace, she sailed along Jefferson until the pavement gave way to the Bay Trail. Flying by the shoreline at a pulse-pounding speed, she navigated around a pedestrian and gained momentum as she set her sights on Fort Mason, gearing up for the trail detour she had been taking ever since the city started their repairs on the retaining wall. She would be glad when they finished. The bypass route led her up a narrow, steep concrete staircase and then connected to an equally narrow walkway before disgorging its occupants onto Upper Fort Mason. Darcy managed the detour without crashing headlong into anyone, or vice versa, and breathed a sigh of relief as she left the park for Marina Boulevard.

Rejuvenated, Darcy increased her tempo as she neared the intersection of Scott and Marina, her feet striking the pavement in a rhythmic thump, thump, thump, the sound suddenly overridden by the louder, heavier slaps of sneakers on pavement. Another runner. She glanced over her shoulder.

Someone barreled into her. She hit the sidewalk. Pain shot through her lower back as her butt landed on concrete. Dazed, she stared at the black man towering over her. Without a word of apology or any attempt to help her, he dashed into the busy boulevard. Horns honked and someone cursed the man.

“Jackass,” Darcy muttered. She scrambled to her feet, retrieved her water bottle, and brushed dirt from her shorts, eager to be on her way. She didn’t want to miss Sean, assuming the note meant today. This was her normal running route, and he knew it since they often ran together, so on any given day she was likely to bump into him anyway.

As Darcy stood across from Lyon Street, waiting for the signal light to change, an orange sun cut through the lifting fog. Ahead loomed the Palace of Fine Arts, its ornate dome glowing copper red under the morning rays. She dropped to a walk, surprised to see the entire area cordoned off with barricades and a phalanx of San Francisco’s finest blocking all avenues into the monument.

Two officers broke from the crowd and said in unison, “Presidio is closed, ma’am.”

“What happened?” she asked, not expecting an answer.

“Come back another time,” the traffic cop said, his hand resting possessively on his holster.

Darcy turned to retrace her steps, hoping to approach the rotunda from a different route. In the distance, sirens shattered the peace. Their shrill whines grew louder as wave after wave of emergency vehicles and squad cars flooded the Presidio, choking off every artery. The invasion continued until the peaceful community swarmed with law enforcement. Front doors opened, and residents gathered on their porches or the sidewalks to gawk at the commotion.

She zipped her Windbreaker to conceal her shoulder rig and snuck between the vehicle-flanked streets to where a crowd had assembled at a police barrier. “What happened?”

“Cops won’t say,” said one of the cyclists milling around the barricade. “All I know is, the streets are crawling with cops.”

“We should’ve stayed at the Golden Gate,” complained another cyclist, her head bent as she examined the toe clips attached to her bicycle pedals.

A jogger stopped in front of the growing crowd of onlookers. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“Not sure,” Darcy answered.

“Must be serious,” he said, panting. “Police are going door-to-door asking if anyone saw anything, and I heard they’ve sealed off all roads within a one-mile radius. Whatever happened must be big.”

An ambulance nosed past them, tailed by a white SUV with San Francisco Medical Examiner on the side. The vehicles parked at the curb just as two vans careened onto the grounds. The letters stenciled on the compartment doors read kxtv.

A young policeman posted at the barricade shouted, “Tell them to get lost!”

A fellow officer who looked like he’d been on the force since the Kennedy administration gave the younger policeman a tired look. “At least keep them at bay.”

Someone called out a hello to Tony Barazza, the chief medical examiner and a friend of Darcy’s. Not wanting to be seen by Barazza at this particular moment, she blended into the crowd and watched him elbow his way through the throng along with Martinez, an investigator from the coroner’s office.

“Geary ordered the area sealed off,” an officer passed the word. “The entire palace area. Understood?”

“Got it,” another officer answered.

Darcy moved to the sidelines, searching for a weak point in the stronghold of blue, but all she saw were reinforcements and medics arriving by the minute. The chaos escalated. She slunk to the rear of the crowd, and crossed the pavement to Palace Drive. The street wrapped the back side of the palace grounds. No one confronted her, so she walked on and had almost reached the other side of the monument when she spotted two uniformed officers patrolling Lyon and Bay and another two loitering on the last stretch of lawn between her and the palace. To avoid suspicion, she met them midway.

“Officers, hi. Maybe you can help me.”

“The grounds are closed,” said the taller of the two. “You have to leave. Now.”

“Sorry, I didn’t know.” She headed back up Palace Drive, mind busy working out her next move. She glanced behind her. The officers were gone, so she walked briskly toward Bay, not at all surprised to see the policeman chatting with fellow officers at a police barricade on Lyon. She slipped among the parked cars and spied on them.

A man wearing a khaki jacket and pants appeared on the sidewalk. He took keys from his pocket and crossed the street to a row of cars. One of the officers at the Lyon roadblock homed in on him.

“Hey, you. Yes, you!” the policeman hollered. “Who gave you permission to enter the area?”

“I didn’t realize I needed permission, Officer . . .?”

“Osborn. Let’s see some identification.”

“Sure.” The man handed over his driver’s license.

Osborn studied the stranger’s face against the photograph on the license. “Jesús Santiago?”

“Yes, sir. Can I go now?”

“Are you in a hurry?” Osborn handed back the license.

“Frankly, yes sir, I am. My client needs ten blowups—enlargements—and they’re due tomorrow.” Santiago unlocked a dilapidated Volkswagen van and leaned into the driver’s side.

“When did you arrive at the palace?”

“Dawn. And I’m not here to tour the palace, but the Presidio.” Santiago sneezed twice. “Allergies.”

“What have you been doing all this time?”

“Shooting birds. With a camera, of course. I’m a professional photographer. My client owns Tweety Bird Feeds, a seed company outside Oakland.”

Osborn grunted. “Open your backpack.”

Stiff from crouching, Darcy shifted her weight from one leg to the other, giving her a better vantage point.

Santiago released the nylon buckle, shrugged off the rucksack, and rested it gently on the ground.

“Unpack it.”

Santiago complied. “Cameras. Lenses. Water.”

“The palace grounds are closed to all traffic, including pedestrians. The officers posted at the Marina barricade will point you to the detour route.”

Santiago shook his head. “Great. Another delay.”

“Good day, sir, and thank you for your cooperation.” Osborn radioed a fellow officer. “Kenton, Osborn. A white Volkswagen van is headed your way. Direct him to the detour. After he leaves, radio me.”

Seconds after Santiago’s van dipped from view, Osborn’s two-way radio squawked. “He’s gone? Good. Thanks, Kenton.” Osborn walked across the lawn and disappeared from view.

Rocking forward, Darcy prepared to stand, but she felt a slight tug followed by a tearing sound. Something had snagged her jacket. She bent down to free her Windbreaker and noticed the license plates on the sports car parked beside her: eql ryts. Sean’s car. He must be somewhere in the Presidio. She placed a hand on the hood to raise herself. The metal was cool to the touch. The car had been here a while.

She swept the area and immediately spotted Detective Walter Ortiz, a cop she knew well from a previous case. He and several other officers lingered at the fringe of the parking lot. The party broke up, and Officer Fillmore, a rookie from the Central Station, began his patrol of the area. She had an idea. Not original, but few were. She pulled out her PI license and advanced on Fillmore, calling out as she approached, “Have you seen Detective Ortiz?”

As she hoped, her assertiveness threw Fillmore, who had been on the force for a month. “Oh, hi, Detective McClain. He’s in the rotunda. Why?”

“He’s expecting me.”

“Really?” Fillmore hesitated. “I’ll show—”

“Thanks, I know the way.”

“Wait.”

Darcy pretended not to hear. She crossed the greenbelt at a fast walk. Out of sight of Fillmore, she veered onto a walkway, dived into the shrubs bordering the lagoon, and ducked under the yellow crime scene tape, one end of which was anchored to a tree trunk, the other tied around a colonnade.

She stole to the nearest wall and kept low for cover. A team of three stationed at the archway milled about. One carried a logbook, his job to sign in and out anyone who entered or exited the monument.

A gentle breeze stirred the scent of freshly mown grass, and muffled voices filtered from the rotunda, the words inaudible. She leaned sideways for a better view, her shoulder against the pillar for leverage. Detective Geary, a bald man pushing fifty, threw out his chest and sucked in his gut as he joined five of his officers and two plainclothes cops huddled at the palace entrance. Barazza and Martinez lingered nearby, talking in low voices. Barazza noticed Geary and headed toward the officer. A short conversation ensued. Geary spewed expletives, slapped Barazza on the back, and rejoined his men for another gab session.

Suddenly, the group exploded in loud argument, and two uniformed officers broke from the tight-knit assembly. The men seemed agitated, pacing and puffing nervously on cigarettes, apparently contemplating something important. Then the loop tightened and the heated debate continued. Curiosity ate at Darcy.

As time passed, gathering clouds blocked the sun, and shadows dulled the silhouettes inside the monument, making it difficult to discern one figure from another, especially from her angle and when most wore blue.

“Hey, get those lights in here.” Geary bellowed his directive.

Officers scurried into the theater. They unpacked tripods equipped with high-wattage spotlights and arranged them in a semicircle. Bright floodlights doused the honey-colored walls in blinding white.

“Okay, everyone out.” Geary’s gruff voice resonated through the dome.

People scattered. Darcy’s pulse quickened. On the ground sprawled a man, his back to her, one arm tucked under his body and his head partially hidden. He wore brown Dockers, loafers, and a white shirt. She craned her neck to catch a closer look, but the angle wouldn’t allow for a clear view. A policewoman stepped forward and covered the body with a blanket. Darcy eased off the concrete ledge to the ground and paused, thinking through the best approach to access the rotunda.

A hand closed on her shoulder. “Seen enough?”

She spun. “Osborn. Hi.”

Osborn leaned sideways, his gaze toward the rotunda. “Hey, Hilton. Come here.”

A short, dark-haired man in his mid-thirties strutted in their direction. Hilton, too, was new to the force, not a rookie but a transfer from LA. He saw Darcy and shook his head. “McClain, how in the hell did you get past the command post? Shit, Geary’s going to blow his top. Sir!” Hilton shouted to his boss. “I need you for a minute.”

“I’m coming,” said Geary. Darcy had tangled with him on many investigations, the outcome never good. He put an unlit cigar between his lips and scratched his silver-and-brown mustache with his thumb. The minute he laid eyes on her, his slow gait increased to a fast shuffle. “You working this job, McClain? No, so scat.” To Hilton, Geary shouted, “Goddamn it. Who’s sleeping on the job? I want names. Do you hear me, Hilton? Names.”

“Yes, sir.”

Geary turned back to Darcy. “Well, what are you doing here, McClain?”

“Out for a jog.”

Geary snickered. “Right.”

“Detective. Sir,” an officer called to Geary.

“Yeah, Beckwith? What is it?”

“Press wants to interview you. They want to know if you can ID the guy.”

“Tell the assholes I’m trying to conduct a murder investigation plus deal with other crap.” He cocked his thumb at Darcy. “Now back to work and find the damn murder weapon.”

“Yes, sir. Sir, what is the murder weapon?” asked Beckwith.

“The hell if I know. Just keep searching.”

A tall, distinguished-looking black man in a tan suit sauntered over to Geary. Darcy liked Detective Ortiz, a man with a conscience, for God knows Geary had none.

“Darcy, hi.” A smile brightened Ortiz’s stern face, and his hand shot out.

She shook it. “Good to see you again.”

Geary muttered something, followed by, “Okay, you two, cut the sweet stuff. We’re here on business.”

Ortiz glanced at his cell phone. “MacDonald says he found something interesting.”

“Oh?” Geary’s dour expression brightened. “Let’s talk over there. Where it’s private.”

After a few moments, Ortiz motioned to Darcy to come over.

Geary cursed. “No reason to involve her whatsoever. None.” Darcy didn’t hear Ortiz’s reply, only Geary’s loud bark. “Okay, okay. So let her identify the victim. Then she leaves.”

Ortiz made eye contact. His sad expression carried a warning: “This won’t be easy.” And his demeanor said she knew the victim. He walked her to where the body lay. A cool breeze rustled the bushes, tousling Darcy’s damp hair. A shiver skidded along her spine, and sweat beaded on her upper lip. It seemed like an eternity until he pulled back the blanket.

“I’m so sorry.” Ortiz touched her shoulder.

Numb, Darcy knelt, one hand on the ground to steady herself, her knees weak and her brain denying what her eyes clearly saw. “How did he die?”

“Don’t answer.” Geary stepped in front of Darcy. “Now stand, McClain.”

“It does no harm to give her a minute.” Ortiz grabbed Geary’s arm and led him away from the body. Begrudgingly, Geary went along.

Darcy stared at her friend, lying lifeless on the cold ground. Disbelief and sadness tore at her heart, and tears stung her eyes. Through blurred vision, she whispered her goodbye. “I’ll miss you, Sean.”

***

  Excerpt from Genocide by Pat Krapf. Copyright © 2017 by Pat Krapf. Reproduced with permission from Pat Krapf. All rights reserved.

  Author Bio:

Patricia “Pat” Krapf is a full-time writer and author of the acclaimed Darcy McClain and Bullet Thriller Series.

She and her husband live in Texas with their giant schnauzer Bullet, who at a hundred pounds has found his way into the plot of his master’s books.

Pat was an active member of the Dallas-Ft. Worth Writers’ Workshop for ten years and is now a member of several professional writing organizations, including Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. She frequents Bouchercon and the DFW Writers Conference. Her second book, Gadgets, won the Betty L. Henrichs Award for Best Publishable Mystery.

Catch Up With Our Author On: Website 🔗, Twitter 🔗, & Facebook 🔗!

Tour Participants:

Visit these tour participants for great interviews, guest posts, reviews, & GIVEAWAYS!

  Here’s Your Chance to WIN!

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours for Susan Kandel and Harper Collins. There will be 5 winners of one (1) eBook copy of Brainwash by Pat Krapf. The giveaway begins on June 1 and runs through July 2 2017.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

  Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours

BLOG TOUR – Genocide was originally published on the Wordpress version of The Pulp and Mystery Shelf

[katsindiebookblog]

  Title: Vanished

Author: T.K. Leigh

Genre: Mystery/Suspense/Thriller

Release Date: February 7, 2017

Book Links 

99c for release day only

AMAZON US / UK / CA / AU

B&N / KOBO / iBOOKS

GOOGLE PLAY

ADD TO GOODREADS

Recommended for mature readers due to strong language and graphic violence.

Rayne Kilpatrick has everything. A job she’s dreamed of since a little girl. The perfect house. And a man she loves and is about to marry… Until he never returns from a humanitarian mission.

Gone. Disappeared. Vanished.

When footage of his gruesome murder by a Muslim extremist group is shown across the country and around the globe, she wants the person responsible for the disappearance of the man she loves to pay. She wants him to lose the one person who means the world to him, too, and she won’t stop until he does.

Alexander Burnham has everything… Finally. A job he enjoys where he can actually make a difference in the world. The perfect woman who he’s loved his entire life. And the most beautiful daughter a father could ask for… Until he walks into her bedroom one morning to find it empty.

Gone. Disappeared. Vanished.

It’s a race against the clock for Alexander to put the pieces together and find out who has taken his daughter and what they want from him. As information comes to light, he is forced to bury the guilt he feels after losing his fellow team member and focus instead on finding and saving his daughter…

Before it’s too late.

Vanished can be read in conjunction with or separate from the Beautiful Mess series.

Review

Vanished by T.K. Leigh

Kat’s rating: 5 of 5 stars

*** I voluntarily reviewed this book, I gained no monetary incentives nor was I specifically requested to review the book, these are my honest ramblings and I hope you enjoy reading them – kat***

I will say this was a hard book to read in one sitting, I had to take breaks at certain points because my heart and throat and eyes couldn’t take it. Even as I neared the end, I had to go do something else as I was crying so hard I couldn’t see my kindle! and I will say the warning is correct, this is NOT a romance, it’s like reading an episode of Criminal Minds, the tension, stress of the investigation came over strongly in Ms. Leigh’s writing.

I have been a fan of T.K. Leigh since I met her in 2015, I bought her Beautiful mess series at the Readers and Writers Down Under Signing, at the recommendation of a facebook friend, Shaneen introduced us and T.K. was such a lovely person, very supportive and free with her advice for new authors. I am sad to admit that those books are still unread on my bookshelf! WELL NO MORE, I am making time to read them this month (Somehow) #bloggerproblems! (very carefully so not to spoil the books, I really hate opening my signed books to read) #Bookaholic

So I read this book blind, with no knowledge of the series. I think I am glad in a way because I went in with no preconceived ideas on what to expect.

At first I was thinking it would be a 3 – 4 star as I had a bit of a hard time relating to Rayne, I couldn’t understand how she had gotten so lost, that she would consider something so heinous. Even when I learned about why she was so low I couldn’t understand how she thought that Alex Burnham deserved what she was planning to do. As I read on I got more involved, the story started to give me my answers, but also would give me more puzzles to ponder.

I may have taken breaks from reading to do other things, but my mind was constantly trying to work out what was going on, what would come next and whether Melanie would survive.

By 61% I was hooked, by the complexity of the plot and as the clues for Melanie’s kidnapping were revealed the tension mounted.

As Alex and the Authorities try to piece together the clues to who has taken Melanie, Alex’s life and those around him are put under the microscope.

TK has done a very good job at expressing the anguish, the neverending torment of questions a parent would ask themselves if dealing with this situation.

I lost my youngest in a shopping centre when he was 6 years old, he was found 15 minutes later, but the agony of not knowing, the rampaging thoughts of what may have happened, my heart was so painful and to this day it’s as fresh in my mind and it was 20 years ago.

This remembered pain, well it came back in spades reading this book, I had a lump in my throat, at times tears, and a sense of anguish, as events unfolded.

This is a good book, but its dark, its tragic, but compelling and the emotions that come across the pages feels so real, you would think it was based on experience (god forbid).

But I guess that becoming a mother herself was all that the author needed to channel the emotion she would need to write this book. This book encompasses every parent’s nightmare. All I could think while reading this book was how I would cope in Olivia’s shoes. I tend to immerse myself into a story so, as I said and even now when writing this review I was getting choked up.

I could write more, but I don’t want to put too much in the review, I recommend you grab a copy and read it yourself (With tissues at hand).

View all Kat’s reviews

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Excerpt

This was no longer home to a fearless girl who had more love for Olivia than she deserved. This would now become a place of nightmares for her daughter. Would she ever be able to sleep in this room again? Would she ever want to sleep alone? Would she ever feel safe?

Olivia struggled to come to terms with what Melanie’s life would be like if she survived this. She hadn’t done anything to deserve this. Alexander wasn’t without his faults, and neither was Olivia, but Melanie was so young, so pure, so innocent. Now, at far too young an age, she would be jaded by the cruelties of the world.

Would she ever see her smile again?

Would she ever hear her carefree laugh?

Would she ever feel her unconditional love as she flung her arms around her?

Bleakness invaded Olivia right down to her core as she fell onto Melanie’s unmade bed. Sheets that were once warm from her presence had grown cold, and Olivia could no longer keep it in. She wasn’t just watching a made-for-TV movie about a successful, semi-famous family losing their daughter. She was living the nightmare. wishing with everything she had that this would all be over soon, that it wasn’t real.

“Wake up!” Olivia screamed, slapping her face as relentless tears streamed down her cheeks. She curled into a ball, the torment growing inside her becoming unbearable. It felt like someone was ripping her open with sadistic apathy, the pace languid and sluggish, taking pleasure from each strained breath she struggled to capture. Her skin prickled with the heat of a thousand branding irons. No matter how loud she screamed, it wouldn’t dull the pain.

“Wake up, Olivia!” she bellowed again, louder and more desperate. Nothing worked. No matter what she did, no matter how loud her cries, nothing would wake her from this nightmare.

Sobs wracked through her body as she fought for air. She tried to gain control over her body and tears, but it was useless. She was no longer in command of her own destiny. Even the seemingly innate task of inhaling and exhaling had become arduous and complicated. Melanie was her lifeline, her reason for living. Without her, Olivia’s heart gave out, her lungs refused to work, her body shut down.

Suddenly, a pair of familiar, strong arms cradled her, lifting her off the torturous bed, cocooning her in a shelter only they could provide. They comforted her sobs, giving her exactly what she needed. She cried into her husband’s chest, a hundred tears falling for every regret. No words were spoken. Lowering himself to the floor, he simply held her in his lap, wiping her tears, providing her with warmth in this cold, hateful world.

She didn’t know how many minutes ticked by as he remained there, silently assuring her with his presence that they would get through this, that everything would work out. Still, she knew they would never be the same. This had shaken their family to its core. There was no returning to the way things were before.

Olivia cried harder.

She cried for all the time she should have spent with her daughter instead of working tirelessly for one charity or another. She cried for all the times she told her no when she should have said yes. Yes, we can have pancakes for dinner. Yes, we can go feed the ducks at the pond. Yes, we can make Christmas cookies in July.

Exhaustion set in as her cries subsided and she closed her eyes. The last thing she saw before drifting off was Melanie standing alone in a dark room, a blank expression on her pale face.

Beautiful Mess Series

CURRENTLY FREE

AMAZON US / UK / CA / AU

B&N / KOBO / iBOOKS

GOOGLE PLAY

 AMAZON US / UK / CA / AU

B&N / KOBO / iBOOKS

GOOGLE PLAY

 AMAZON US / UK / CA / AU

B&N / KOBO / iBOOKS

GOOGLE PLAY

Author Bio

T.K. Leigh, otherwise known as Tracy Leigh Kellam, is a USA Today Bestselling author of the Beautiful Mess series, in addition to several other works. Originally from New England, she now resides in sunny Southern California with her husband, dog, and three cats, all of which she has rescued (including the husband). In late 2015, she gave birth to her first (and only) baby. When she’s not planted in front of her computer, writing away, she can be found training for her next marathon (of which she has run over fifteen fulls and far too many halfs to recall) or chasing her daughter around the house.

T.K. Leigh is represented by Jane Dystel of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. All publishing inquiries, including audio, foreign, and film rights, should be directed to her.

Author Links 

FACEBOOK ~ TWITTER ~ GOOGLE PLUS ~ PINTEREST ~ WEBSITE ~ INSTAGRAM

Giveaway a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review:Vanished by T.K. Leigh #NewRelease #5StarReview @givemebooksblog and @tk_leigh Title: Vanished Author: T.K. Leigh Genre: Mystery/Suspense/Thriller Release Date: February 7, 2017 Book Links  99c for release day only AMAZON…