Michelle L. Levigne's Blog, page 117

Book of the Week: ANNE, Quarry Hall Book #2

The next four weeks will feature Quarry Hall books, because in November, JENNIFER, Quarry Hall #11, will be released from Desert Breeze Publishing.
Book #2: ANNE
After a rough assignment catching people out to destroy battered women's shelters, Anne needed a break. Being assigned to observe operations at Common Grounds Legal Clinic seemed like a cake assignment. Xander Finley, the head lawyer, was a friend of Joan, already supported by the Arc Foundation. Arc was simply expanding its support.
But then Anne was carjacked, her guard dog, Argus, shot. She was already off-balance, worried about Argus and wearing borrowed clothes, and things got worse from day one. Face-to-face with someone from her painful past and feeling antagonism from Xander's employees, Anne stumbled into one problem after another. Her frustration grew when allies became enemies, and she was accused of entrapment and then attempted murder. How come prayer was her last resort, when it should have been her first reaction to every problem?

Off the Bookshelf: SECRETS IN DEATH, by JD Robb

Admit it, we've all wanted to take someone who has spread gossip about us and, at the very least, give them a face-plant somewhere messy and publicly humiliating. Gossips are the lowest of the low, worse than murderers, in a lot of ways. Shakespeare got it right when one character wailed about the destruction of his reputation. The suffering of a mortal wound either heals or it ends with death, but when your reputation has been shredded, it's hard to make it stop. Especially in the modern age of social media.

Dallas is on the scene -- as in, catching the victim's body as she bleeds out in a fancy bar -- when Larinda Mars, a notorious gossip reporter dies. It's natural that Dallas should take it a little personally that someone got slashed almost under her nose. She knows she saw the murderer, but identifying him or her is going to take some work because Mars had a lot of potential victims in her radar, including Dallas and those closest to her. But Mars' worst attacks weren't even public. She was a blackmailer, and making a very hefty profit from threatening to expose everyone's worst secrets and private pain. So who exactly did Mars push to the breaking point?

Another captivating jaunt into the future of New York homicide investigations, and all the complex personalities and relationships that just keep growing and changing in the In Death series. Can't wait until the next book comes out. I'm #91 in the queue at the library for DARK IN DEATH ... which doesn't come out until next year!

BLADE OF INNOCENCE, Highlander the TV series fan fiction

Excerpt from Chapter 1 of the fan novel now available on Wattpad:


            Darcy as he had last seen her filled his mind.  Her long, dark hair was held back in two ponytails.  She wore her favorite green sweatshirt with the roaring lion on it, and scurried through the swinging door into the kitchen, carrying a tub of dirty dishes almost too heavy for her.  Roger had hurried forward to help, and they laughed as they stumbled over to the huge sink to put the tub down.
            "Thanks.  Rescued me again," Darcy had said with a breathless laugh.  Then her smile had faded.  "I wish you'd stay, Roger."
            "So do I, baby doll."

            "I'm not a baby," she had said with a sigh -- and a flicker of humor in her eyes.  "I'm nearly twenty.  I can vote.  I can drive.  I can drink, if I didn't think Dad would paddle my rear end red for it.  I can go three rounds with you before losing my sword."
            "I'm the best swordsman in England," he had interrupted, deliberately thickening the Cornwall accent he had worked three decades to lose.
            "I am not a little girl."
            "Sweetheart, compared to me, you're still in diapers."  He had given in to his longing then and brushed a loose strand of hair back behind her ear.  Roger looked away, knowing if he continued looking into Darcy's wide brown eyes, he would drown in them and say or do something they would all regret.  "When you finish growing up, you'll understand why I had to leave.  Promise."
            "You'll come back?"
            "I promise."
            "The others promised, and now they don't even write anymore," she had said with a sniff, her pretty mouth twisting into a momentary pout.

Book of the Week: JOAN, Quarry Hall #1

Excerpt:

The man leading the way opened a door at the end of the shadowy aisle. Joan guessed the room was a pre-fabricated module, meant for dividing up large spaces to make them usable. All that mattered was that this room sat near the center of the warehouse. The man walking behind her grabbed her shoulder and half-guided, half-shoved her into the room. She stumbled, but the man who went in first, the beardless, taller one of the two, caught her. He copped a feel before pivoting her around, shoving her into a chair in the corner.Matt sat in the other corner, hands bound behind him, his ankles tied to the battered wood-and-metal-tube chair with the same brown twine her captors had used on Joan. From the sweat and grime marking his face, darkening his clothes, matting his hair, he had been given the same temporary storage shed treatment. He had some bruises on his face and his bared arms, but no other signs of rough treatment. What was happening now, that they were brought together?His eyes asked a thousand questions, but he didn't say anything.

Book of the Week: JOAN, Quarry Hall #1

Excerpt:

What kind of villain used twine to tie up his victims?Joan's wrists itched from the fibers as she hobbled down the aisle between tall metal shelves full of grimy crates and packing boxes, and gave another experimental tug with her wrists bound behind her back. A sharp sensation flashed up her arm, followed by warm wet. Either sweat, or she had cut herself with the effort. She was betting on blood, because she had sat for four hours in a dark, grimy storage shed, sweating. The only thing that kept it from being a sweatbox straight out of a prison break movie was that it was made of plastic, not metal. All the time she sat there, no one had asked her any questions. She could have been another crate stored in the shed, for all the attention her captors paid her.That was about to end, obviously. She would have preferred that they had put a hood over her head, but maybe that was a waste of time, since she had seen three of them. They didn't care what she saw, meaning they could keep her quiet and unable to use what she knew against them.

The War Room

Please mark the date for the Faith and Fellowship Book Festival, and plan on attending!
Where is Etna? Look for Columbus, OH and then look to the right. Better yet, just plug the address into your map app. Check out this link and see all the authors, all the different kinds of books, the panel discussions available. Oh, yeah, and BOOKS to buy.
I mean, come on, it's almost time to start CHRISTMAS SHOPPING!!
I'm gonna be there -- I hope to see YOU!

Book of the Week: JOAN, Quarry Hall #1

The next five weeks will feature Quarry Hall books, because in November, JENNIFER, Quarry Hall #11, will be released from Desert Breeze Publishing.

Book #1: JOAN

Under a false identity, Joan finally has the life she has always wanted. With pressure to deepen a relationship on one side, and the threat of an old nemesis finding her on the other, she refuses to run, no matter what it costs her. Into this chaos comes a letter from a man claiming to be her unknown father, and an invitation to visit him at Quarry Hall. He has a proposition for her.Joan can make a big difference for good in the world, using her father's money. She hungers for the family and sense of belonging that Quarry Hall offers. To rescue her closest friend, she would sell the soul she doesn't believe she possesses.In the end, Joan will have to give up the lies that have kept her alive all these years.

Off the Bookshelf: FAIREST, by Marissa Meyer

FAIREST is a play on, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all," and gives it a really wrenching twist.

How?
Well, to start with, the "fairest" of them all doesn't look in mirrors. In fact, by the end of the book, all mirrors are outlawed.
The face she shows the world isn't hers -- stolen, in fact.
"Fair" has so many different connotations.

Meyer shows just what a talented writer she is by making us LIKE the evil stepmother/wicked witch/cruel enchantress character, Queen Levana, of the Lunar Chronicles. How? By showing how she became what she was, the reasons for the things she did. Seen through Levana's eyes, feeling her pain, you almost want to root for her. It's hard to hate someone who seems to have the whole world and all the cards stacked against her.

In many ways, yes, she is the best ruler Luna ever had ... but considering the self-centered, egotistical cretins who came before her, that's really not saying much. Maybe the worst kind of criminal is the one who honestly has good intentions. Or at least has convinced herself her intentions are good. But you know what they say about a road paved with good intentions.

If you love the Lunar Chronicles, you don't want to miss this part of the story, no matter how much it makes you squirm.

New Book: MUSIC IN THE NIGHT

From Desert Breeze Publishing

Madame Collete informed Carmen that her pay was being applied to the dresses Frierri wanted her to wear when she entertained. She smiled warmly enough, but the warmth never reached her eyes. She added that if Carmen did well, she would be offered a room at the hotel, so she wouldn't have any expenses to worry about besides "making pretty." Carmen complied with the fittings for the dresses and tried to calculate how much money she had saved. If only she hadn't bought new boots last week, and a cloak to replace her threadbare shawl. Precious little remained of her pitiful savings, compared to the distance she had to travel to evade Gio Frierri's reach.
"Cleveland certainly isn't far enough," Carmen whispered now, staring at the condensation on the window.
She stood up straight, frowning. When had the idea of Cleveland come into her head? If anything, she should head west, maybe try to reach her father's friends in Denver.
Carmen shivered, hearing Essie, her make believe friend, insisting she had to go to Cleveland. Perhaps the strain of her circumstances had become too much for her and she had broken, at long last? She was losing her mind, imagining a friend who came to her in the darkness and shadows and promised help and whispered advice. Yet what if she weren't losing her mind?
Her mother had always told her to pay attention to her dreams, and to never dismiss the impossible when it happened in front of her. Anna had taught her to search for details and patterns and think about the why and how of things. Otherwise, how would she have realized that wonderful, small, helpful things happened when she sang?

New Book: MUSIC IN THE NIGHT

From Desert Breeze Publishing

When he asked her to sing again, she hesitated. He rapped out the titles of songs she had never heard of, but didn't look upset when each time she shook her head and told him she didn't know them.
"That's all right. You'll learn them, and right quick," he said, looking her over again. "Get rid of those widow's weeds and put on some decent clothes."
"These are all I have, and I'm still in mourning," Carmen had said. "Why should it matter what I wear in the kitchen, or what I sing, for that matter? My friends haven't complained about the songs I sing."
"Yeah, but my friends will." He grinned at her, and she shuddered with the momentary illusion that his teeth were pointed. "You're gonna be the new, private entertainment for special guests."
"Thank you, but no." She wished she had held onto the paring knife, even knowing it wouldn't have done her any good. "I'll stay here in the kitchen, if it's all the same with you."
"It's not." He snatched hold of her by her elbow and yanked her up off the stool, kicking aside the bucket with the potato peelings. "You work in the special parlor, or you don't work at all. Understand?"
"Yes, I understand."
He left with a chuckle. Carmen waited until the break after the lunchtime rush, then went to the manager to ask for her pay up through that morning. Frierri must have anticipated she would try to run. The manager, who had always been kind to her, looked afraid when he told her to report to Madame Collette. He whispered that if she was smart, she would leave town tonight.