Rachael Tamayo's Blog, page 22

Meet Author: Frederick H. Crook

I'm so pleased to have him visit today! 

Frederick was born in Chicago in 1970 and now lives in Villa Park with his wife, Rae and their three dachshunds. He began by writing fictional works all through high school, but didn’t take himself seriously until 2009, when Frederick began writing his first novel, The Dregs of Exodus, which was self-published in late 2010. This was followed up with another novel, The Pirates of Exodus in 2012.

   Throughout that year and 2013, he continued writing and published four short stories in eBook form for Kindle. Runt Pulse, The Fortress of Albion, Lunar Troll, and Campanelli: The Ping Tom Affair.

     His third novel, Campanelli: Sentinel, was picked up by Solstice Publishing in late 2014. The novella, Minuteman Merlin, was released for the Kindle by Solstice Publishing in March of 2015 and followed up by his fourth novel, Of Knight & Devil in September. His fifth novel, Campanelli: Siege of the Nighthunter was released by Solstice in March, 2016.

    He is currently an editor for Solstice Publishing and working on novel number six, a paranormal historical fiction.

About his most recent book:  

Campanelli: Siege of the Nighthunter

                June, 2110. A serial killer strikes the populace of the City of Chicago. The first victim is a wanted man by Detective Frank Campanelli’s Sentinel Division. His body had been mutilated and, from the evidence uncovered by forensic genius, H. Lincoln Rothgery, it has been partially consumed. The unknown invader leaves a trail of corpses behind in short order, including that of a homicide detective.

                To add to the mystery, the DNA evidence retrieved from a stolen vehicle indicates that the killer is former military, but special encoding prevents the murderer from being identified. Frank’s partner, Marcus Williams, seems to know more about what’s going on than he lets on, until the former Navy SEAL calls in a friend from the FBI to help.

                “The Nighthunter”, as the media has labeled him, instills terror and virtually shuts down Chicago. Together, Campanelli, Williams, and the agent must work to capture the enigmatic and frighteningly efficient cannibal.

Campanelli: Siege of the Nighthunter

By Frederick H. Crook






 

Read an Excerpt

Meet Author Steve Lindahl: Guest Blogger

I'd like to welcome guest Blogger, Author Steve Lindahl. He's the author of Motherless Soul and White Horse Regressions. He has a third book coming soon from Solstice Publishing: Hopatcong Vision Quest.  I'm honored to have him come by and visit today! 

 

Past life fiction from an author's perspective

            Time travel stories have always been a favorite of mine. There's something about mixing the different lifestyles from different eras that intrigues me, especially if there are relationships that span the time frames. But when I chose to write historical fiction wrapped in a present day mystery, I chose past life regressions as the device to connect the two eras rather than time travel. I'm glad I made that decision, but I've found disadvantages as well as advantages.

            My novels include two published by All Things That Matter Press: Motherless Soul and White Horse Regressions and a third coming soon from Summer Solstice: Hopatcong Vision Quest. All of these are mysteries where a crime has occurred which has not been solved with traditional methods. A hypnotist is called in to work with the main characters to recall their past life memories. The two main premises are that major events repeat themselves and that souls share past lives (there can be gender and relationship changes). Clues to solve the modern mystery can be found by looking at the similar events and determining the modern counterparts to the past culprits.

            The problem with time travel books is that the travelers can change past events and, by doing so, affect the present. Some authors such as Connie Willis (Doomsday Book) come up with ways around the dilemma by defining what can be done and what can't. Others such as Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Travelers Wife) just work around the enigma. With past life fiction the past characters are not aware of the future, so they don't change it. Their present day counterparts witness the past, but don't travel there.

            The problem with using past life regressions as a literary device is that there is a spiritual side which scares some readers. I think they fear that the author might preach to them. I've often heard readers of my books say that they generally don't read this type of book, but they loved mine.

            In my first two novels characters from North Carolina and Vermont recalled lives during the American Civil War, Victorian London, and the Han dynasty in ancient China. In Hopatcong Vision Quest, the novel due out soon from Summer Solstice, I've tried something different. Both the past and the present are set at Lake Hopatcong, NJ. In the present it is a recreational lake surrounded by residential communities. In the past it is a Lenape Native American village on the shore of one of the ponds that were joined later to form the lake. It will be interesting to see how this choice is received.

Find Steve here:

Goodreads

Motherless Soul

By Steve Lindahl

Amazon Author page 

Steve's website

Watch the book Trailer:White Horse Regressions

Meet Author James Stanley

I'm pleased to have author James Stanley here today! 

 

 

1. Tell us a little about yourself.

I’m a fun guy, born in WA state and witness to foreign policy tension between particular countries in the East and the US. With one threatening the US with nuclear war, I was inspired to write this book.

 

2. Is Writing your full time profession, or do you have a day job?

Well writing these books has by far been a very profitable “day job” I’ve had so far. That’s the problem when you’re a student; no one hires you until you have a degree!

2.     What is your book about?

Great State, the first one anyway, is about big government becoming “bad government.” It follows the adventures of a government employee who turns from a hardened Marxist into a full-fledged, “dangerous” capitalist. After reflecting upon the impact of the disheartening detainment centers, he makes a “dangerous” swing to capitalist side of the political spectrum, and makes it his mission to uproot the evil from within the country, by dismantling the President’s grip on society. It’s a game of office politics, heart-pounding action, and fits in the category of dystopias next to George Orwell’s 1984, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and the parent novel of 1984, “We” by Zamyatin.

 

3.     What is your current project?

My current project is the second in the Great State series, which is called Emergence.

4.     What is your process? Does your mood/location have to be specific or can you write anywhere and anytime?

It’s changed due to the need to be absolutely precise in some of the speeches in the book. Politics is often a controversial and complicated issue, but I lay it out quite simply in the books. I used to write 10 pages—every day—when I was producing Emergence. Now school, perhaps the perennial impediment to writing daily, has interfered with that.

 

6. What do you read?

Mostly dystopia novels, though if Christopher Nolan were to write a book and not a screenplay, I certainly would read it. J

 

7. What’s the last book you read?

Republic Lost by Lawrence Lessig, though the last preferred book I read was 1984 by George Orwell (for the second time).

 

8. How can readers find you?

I’m on Amazon and have an author profile.

 

9. Where can they buy your books?

Great State (The State Series)

By James Stanley

10. Anything you’d like to add?

 

These books push you to think. Sure, there’s a balance of plot and character arcs to appeal to those who like that sort of thing. But plot is equally important. And what follows from a plot are sections devoted to reinforce thinking objectively and emotionlessly—to see a humanitarian crisis for what it is, no matter how well it may be hidden ideologically. I hope you enjoy it.

Meet Susan Lynn Solomon

Welcome back! I'm honored to have another great author here today, Susan Lynn Solomon. 

 

1.      Tell Us a little about yourself.

Ah, Rachael, I’ve reached that magic age at which it’s difficult to tell only a little about myself. Looking back, it seems I’ve been writing my entire life. Music, poetry, stories, at different stages my writing took different directions. In high school I learned to play guitar, and in short order began to play with a rock bank. After six or so months of playing other people’s songs, I started to write for the group. In one form or another, the group became moderately successful over time, playing colleges, concerts, and clubs along the east coast. Eventually, though, the love bug bit, and chasing stardom thorough one-night stands lost its attraction.

 

So, marriage, kids, law school, and jobs in the music industry filled my days and nights. Until. In a story, there’s always an until, isn’t there? Divorce, a severe car accident, and a drawn-out recovery led me in a new direction.  When I was at last able to work again, I signed on as a contributing editor for a quarterly art magazine, where page design and writing became my full time job. Even within the strictures of the magazine’s editorial policy there was room for creativity. At this time, both articles and stories flowed, and the stories haven’t stopped. Though I still work, my life is now defined by the lies I spin— What? Isn’t a writer actually a professional liar?

 

2.      Is Writing your full time profession, or do you have a "day job?"

There is a job that pays the bills—I’m in-house counsel for an efficiency management company here in Niagara Falls. But, in the past few years I’ve had more than a dozen short stories published—one of them nominated for Best of the Net in 2013—and now my first Solstice Publishing novel has enjoyed some success… Well, last week I explained to my employer that writing is now my job, and working for him is just a hobby. It’s a good thing Dr. Ganim—the man I work for—has a sense of humor…Actually, to give credit where it’s due, Dr. Ganim has, and continues to, support and encourage my writing. In this I believe I’m a very lucky woman.

 

3.      What is your book about?

Voices In My Head, just released by solstice Publishing, is a volume of nine short stories focused on nine lives in crisis. To give you just a sense of just a few, In Mystery of the Carousel, I explores the link between a veteran of World War I and the carousel on which, as a child, he imagined great battles. In Maggie’s End, I explore the devastation of incest in an early 19th Century English setting. Witches Gumbo takes the reader to Bayou LaFit early in the 20th century—a time a place where the “old ways” still reigned—and considers whether vengeance is justified. Then, because I can’t resist a mystery, the book includes The Holmes Society in which my protagonist comes face-to-face with the horror of her past. The last story in the book, Kaddish shows the unavoidable bond between death and identity. I don’t know whether I ought to mention this, but Kaddish is more than a bit autobiographical—in places, embarrassingly so.

 

4.      What is your current project?

I’m working now on a new murder mystery, Dead Again, featuring the characters from my book, The Magic of Murder. I can’t call Dead Again the sequel, because when Solstice put out a call for stories for it summer solstice anthologies, I brought back Emlyn Goode, Rebecca, Detective Roger Frey, and, of course, the albino cat, Elvira in a story called Bella Vita. That short story (if 15,000 words can be called short) gives the reader a smile while witnessing my imaginary friends trip over themselves trying to use witchcraft to give a killer a comeuppance. This story also introduces a few people who find their way into Dead Again.

 All I’ll say about Dead Again is that it begins when Emlyn’s mother flied to Niagara Falls to attend a forty-second high school reunion. Uh-huh, that’s what I said—forty-second reunion. That might give you an idea that everything won’t quite be as it seems. Anyhow, I’ve finished two drafts of this novel, and I’m working on the third draft to clean a few things up.

 

5.      What is your process? Does your mood/location have to be specific or can you write anywhere and anytime?

I’ll write anywhere and anytime. My writer’s journal is always in my purse (yes, I carry a rather large purse). A couple of stories were written at gates in airports while waiting for my flight. I write in restaurants, and a few time an idea floated into my brain while I was driving. Not very bright, I admit, but the cop who stopped me had an interesting way of phrasing things. As soon as he pulled away, his voice made it into my journal.

 

6.      What do you read?

I’ll read anything I can get my hands on as long as it’s well written. But my preference is fiction. I tend to stay away from non-fiction because, I have enough reality in real life. So, fiction, and my first love is mysteries—a good whodunnit with well-crafted characters. And I gravitate to mysteries where the characters migrate from story to story, and I can watch them grow.

  

7.      How can readers find you?

I’m on Facebook, constantly.  I also have a   website where readers can get a sense of what my novel, The Magic of Murder is about, and get a peek at my short story collection, Voices In My Head. Check out the book trailer here.

 

Voices in My Head

By Susan Lynn Solomon

 

 Anything you'd like to add?

Absolutely. Writers, please keep writing. Turn out those stories that fill my imagination and take me to places I’ve never seen. Show me the inner lives of people whom I wish I knew. 

Meet Margaret Egrot

I would like you all to meet my special guest , Margaret Egrot.  She's the author of Young Adult novel, Girl friends. I'm so pleased to have her Here!

What is the title of your latest book? What is it about? 
GIRL FRIENDS is a YA novel. The protagonist is fifteen year old Courtney who looking for love and good marks in school. Home life is tough, but at least she has her best friend Grace. Grace however has other fish to fry, mostly in the form of a new, older, boyfriend who promises to get her the right contacts to fulfil her ambition to be a model. Is Courtney right to be worried about what Grace is getting herself into? Or is she just jealous? 
The story takes us into the grim world of sex trafficking, and things do not work out well for Grace. On the plus side, Courtney gets the exam grades she needs, a stronger friendship with Grace, and her own boyfriend!

 

What are the most challenging aspects of being a writer? And the most rewarding?
I find sticking with my intended plot outline quite a challenge – the characters often decide to do something completely different. Usually, unless it would mean completely re-writing the book (and that has happened!) I go with the flow and tweak the plot outline accordingly.

My most rewarding experience was when my son read the first draft of my first YA book, And Alex Still has Acne – and said it was quite good! Praise indeed from him; he wouldn’t have hesitated to tell his mother she was writing rubbish if that was what he thought. He did make a few useful suggestions as well - after all he had been a teenager a lot more recently than I had.

What is your top tip for an aspiring writer?
Read plenty of novels, especially from the genre you want to write in. Read for pleasure, but then think about what worked / didn’t work for you in that particular book before you move onto the next one.

What are you working on at the moment?
I am working on a series of short stories, based around some of Shakespeare’s female characters. What they were up to when we don’t see them on stage. Some have already been published. Chains of Magic, about Desdemona and Othello was in the Food of Love anthology, published by Solstice. Another one, based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, will be in their 2016 summer anthology. I hope to have enough stories completed over the next few months to be published as a collection which I have provisionally titled Cast Off.  It would be great if I could get it all together as my contribution to the events marking this year’s 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. 

What do you like to read?
I will read almost anything from cereal packets to dictionaries rather than sit and not read. I like the classics (Jane Austen, George Eliot) but will also read new novels (Anne Tyler – A Spool of Blue Thread). I like non-fiction too and have not long read two books by Bill Bryson: A Short History of Nearly Everything and Mother Tongue. I love the way he conveys so much information in such an engaging way. I have nearly finished Helen Macdonald’s, H is for Hawk, which is about her coming to terms with grief for the death of her father through training a hawk.

Where can readers find you?
Nearly all my published work is available from Amazon here and here
Facebook 
Twitter: 
Website:
Blog: 

The thin Blue Line: Soldiers in Blue

Today, May 21, 2016 is the last day of National Police Week. I thought it appropriate to say a little something about these men and women that step out of their homes every day, kissing their families goodbye, to protect the communities around our nation.

As a dispatcher, I see a side to these everyday heroes that others don't. To me, they are people. They laugh, they cry, they get angry. They risk their very lives for both the grateful and the ungrateful. They watch bad people slip away, only to hurt someone or take something that someone else worked hard for.  These men and women get dressed for work every day, just like you and I do. 

But ask yourself this, when you get ready to go to work, do you have to put on a vest to protect (hopefully) your body from bullet wounds, in case someone shoots at you? 

Do you have to put on a belt that has a holster for a gun?

Or maybe a taser?

So, if you're like me, or most other people you don't.  The only other people that I can think of that dress this way are solders.  These people are soldiers, protecting our community, our people, our children. They uphold the law to the best of their ability.

Remember one more thing, in this age of "blue lives matter" and such, yes they matter. All lives matter. Just don't forget, no matter what you say about them, love or hate them, if you call, they will come running.

So, to all the police officers that I know, and to the ones that I don't, Thank you. Thank you for always being there. 

My name is Rachael Tamayo, and I've been a police dispatcher for ten years. I'm a writer, and a wife and mother. My book will be coming out later this year through Solstice Publishing.

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