Darcia Helle's Blog, page 13

Book Review — THE YOUNGER WIFE by Sally Hepworth

THE HUSBAND
A heart surgeon at the top of his field, Stephen Aston is getting married again. But first he must divorce his current wife, even though she can no longer speak for herself.

THE DAUGHTERS
Tully and Rachel Aston look upon their father’s fiancée, Heather, as nothing but an interloper. Heather is younger than both of them. Clearly, she’s after their father’s money.

THE FORMER WIFE
With their mother in a precarious position, Tully and Rachel are determined to get to the truth about their family’s secrets, the new wife closing in, and who their father really is.

THE YOUNGER WIFE
Heather has secrets of her own. Will getting to the truth unleash the most dangerous impulses in all of them?

Published: April 5, 2022

Amazon | Goodreads

My Thoughts

Let’s talk expectations. The Younger Wife has been loosely marketed as a domestic “thriller.” It’s not a thriller at all. Even calling it suspense is, for me, pushing the boundaries. This is a complex domestic drama with an suspenseful undercurrent. If you’re expecting the fast pace of a thriller or the consistent edginess of suspense, you’ll likely be disappointed.

On to the story. First I want to mention that Sally Hepworth’s writing is always engaging, and this book is no different. She draws readers in with realistic characters dealing with real-life issues, providing depth and insight that helps us understand ourselves and each other.

But the story, well, I appreciate the undertaking, though I didn’t love the execution.

We have LOTS of heavy topics. Every single character here has a life-altering secret. For me, it was too much. One or two troubled characters are interesting, but all five is like the proverbial “everything but the kitchen sink.”

I figured everything out way ahead. The only suspense came in waiting for the characters to catch up.

All this leads me to my main issue with the story. I’ve grown weary of the plot device too many domestic dramas (suspense/thrillers) are using these days, in which no one in the family tells anyone or notices anything of relevance, ever. The only way this story works is if all four of these family members are completely, totally, utterly oblivious. How can you live in a home with three other people for decades, yet not observe anything of consequence, especially when so much is wrong?

Oh, and the epilogue? I hated it for reasons I can’t explain without spoilers.

*I received an eARC from St. Martin’s Press, via NetGalley.*

The post Book Review — THE YOUNGER WIFE by Sally Hepworth appeared first on Quiet Fury Books.

New Release Spotlight and Review — THE DACHSHUND WEARS PRADA: Paws in the City, Book 1 by Stefanie London

How do you start over when the biggest mistake of your life has more than one million views?

Forget diamonds; the internet is forever. Social media consultant Isla Thompson learned that lesson the hard way when she went viral for all the wrong reasons. A month later, Isla is still having nightmares about the moment she ruined a young starlet’s career and made herself the most unemployable influencer in Manhattan. But she doesn’t have the luxury of hiding away until she’s no longer “Instagram Poison.” Not when her fourteen-year-old sister, Dani, needs Isla to keep a roof over their heads. So she takes the first job she can get: caring for Camilla, a glossy-maned, foul-tempered hellhound.

After a week of ferrying Camilla from playdates to pet psychics, Isla starts to suspect that the dachshund’s bark is worse than her bite—just like her owner, Theo Garrison. Isla has spent her career working to make people likeable and here’s Theo—happy to hide behind his reputation as a brutish recluse. But Theo isn’t a brute—he’s sweet and funny, and Isla should not see him as anything but the man who signs her pay cheques. Because loving Theo would mean retreating to his world of secluded luxury, and Isla needs to show Dani that no matter the risk, dreams are always worth chasing.

THE DACHSHUND WEARS PRADA
Author: Stefanie London
ISBN: 9781335639837
Publication Date: May 3, 2022
Publisher: HQN Books

Buy Links:
BookShop.org
Harlequin
Barnes & Noble
Amazon
Books-A-Million
Powell’s

Excerpt

three

Isla trudged along the hallway toward her apartment, high heels swinging from her finger. Usually she wouldn’t dare go barefoot on public carpet—especially not in a building of questionable standards, like this one. But after walking six blocks to get home in the pretty, stiletto-heeled death traps, her feet had officially given up the ghost.

Besides, foot hygiene was the least of her problems. With another rejected job application—this one coming through before she’d even made it home from the interview—she had bigger things to worry about.

Isla unlocked her front door and stepped inside, her lips quirking at the familiar sight. Her little sister, Dani, was standing next to the wall, one hand resting on a makeshift barre crafted from a shower curtain rod and some wall brackets they’d found at the dollar store. She was dressed in a plain black leotard and a pair of pink ballet tights with a hole in the knee. Her battered pointe shoes were frayed around the toes, though the ribbons were glossy and new, stitched on with the utmost care.

Classical music blared from the stereo and Isla hit the pause button. “What have I said about disturbing the neighbors?”

Dani paused mid-plié. “If you’re going to do it, do it properly.”

“That’s not what I said.” She shot her sister a look, trying to ignore how her leotard was digging into her shoulders. It was clearly a size too small because the damn girl was growing like a weed. At fourteen, she’d already surpassed Isla in height.

“Oh, that’s right.” Dani grinned. “You said that about schoolwork. But, to be fair, ballet is even more important than schoolwork, so…”

“We’ll agree on that when you can pay the bills with pliés.” Isla hung her keys on the hook by the door and dumped her purse onto the kitchen counter.

“Working on it.” Dani continued warming up, her pointe shoes knocking against the floorboards. “How was your day?”

Ugh. You mean, how were the three dozen rejection letters and this last interview, which was clearly only for curiosity’s sake because the recruiter straight up laughed the second I left the interview room?

“It was…fine,” she said, without much commitment.

In reality, it was anything but fine. What had her old boss called her? Oh, that’s right: Instagram poison.

“You told me once that saying something is ‘fine’ is no better than saying it’s ‘purple pineapples.’” Dani dropped down from her relevé and frowned. “What happened?”

What hadn’t happened?

Isla pulled a bottle of wine out of the fridge and poured her-self a glass. She’d been rationing it, since the only stuff that was left after this was a box wine of unknown origin. “Amanda lost her contract with that makeup company and her movie is flopping. She sent me an angry email today.”

“Whatever happened to all publicity is good publicity?”

“It’s a myth. Turns out some things are career killers.” Isla took a gulp of the wine. “And now I’m that woman who filmed a Disney princess vomiting all over herself.”

After the live video had been splashed across the internet and featured on network television, Isla had swiftly been fired from her job as a senior social media consultant with the Gate-way Agency. All her freelance clients had dropped her like a hot potato, too. Now, anyone who searched Isla’sname got page after page of the same thing: vomit girl and the person who was too dumb to stop recording.

Hence the growing pile of rejected job applications.

“I take it the interview didn’t go well?”

Isla cringed at the concern in her sister’s voice. Most fourteen-year-olds were worrying about frivolous things, like which shade of lip gloss was the most on trend or how to craft the perfect TikTok dance routine. Hell, she would argue that’s the stuff they should be worrying about. Not whether they were going to have a roof over their heads.

“No, it didn’t,” Isla admitted. “But honestly, I’m not sure I would have wanted to work there anyway.”

It was a total lie.

Isla was ready to take anything at this point. It was humiliating to be begging for jobs she could have done ten years ago with her eyes closed, only to be rejected because the recruiters had found someone “with more experience.” Umm, what? In other words, she’d been officially blacklisted from the social media industry.

“How come?” Dani walked over to the kitchen, her arms swinging gracefully by her sides. Her dark hair was in a neat bun on top of her head, tied with a piece of leftover ribbon from her pointe shoes. “Were they not very nice?”

“Not really.”

Dani came up to Isla and put an arm around her, stooping so she could lean her head against her big sister’s shoulder. Some days it felt like it was them against the world. Given they didn’t actually know where their mother was these days—and they hadn’t seen either one of their dads in God only knew how long—they really did have to stick together.

Isla remembered the day it all happened—the eve of her twentieth birthday. Their mother had announced she was eloping overseas with a boyfriend she’d known less than a month, and they hadn’t seen her since. Apparently motherhood was a temporary commitment, in her eyes. That left Isla responsible for the well-being of another human, and more terrified of the future than she’d ever been.

Six years later, Isla had built a life for them both. She’d fostered and financed her half sister’s dreams, built up her own dream career and done it all while hiding how often the numbers weren’t in their favor. But the older Dani got, the more keenly she observed what was going on.

“Maybe you can ask the ballet school for our money back,” Dani suggested quietly.

Her spot had been secured for the summer intensive ballet camp months ago, before Isla’s job situation had fallen apart.

“I know it was really expensive,” she added.

Isla felt tears prick the backs of her eyes, but she refused to let her sister see even a sliver of her emotion. It was her job to be a pillar. To be the strong one. To be the positive mother figure neither of them ever had.

“Dani, I would sell my right kidney if it meant you could go to ballet camp.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.”

Isla snorted and wrapped her sister into a big hug. Like al-ways, she smelled of oversweet vanilla perfume and mango-scented shampoo. She would do anything for this kid. Anything to make sure Dani grew up knowing that dreams were worth chasing, and that family came first no matter what.

“And how do you know so much about black market organ sales?” Isla raised a brow and Dani laughed.

“CSI.”

“Ah, of course.” She laughed. But when Dani pulled back, Isla noticed her sister’s characteristically carefree attitude was hidden under the worry swimming in her blue eyes. Isla hated seeing that. “Why don’t we go to Central Park, huh? We’ll take your phone and I can get a few shots of you for your Instagram account.”

“Really?” Dani’s eyes lit up.

“Sure. Just let me get changed.”

“I promise not to make you take a hundred photos this time.” Dani grinned and did a little pirouette in the kitchen. “Not even half that!”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Isla shot over her shoulder as she headed into her bedroom. “Trust me, I know where you get those perfectionistic tendencies.”

The second Isla closed her bedroom door behind her, she slumped against it and deflated like a balloon the day after a birthday party. Outside, the city roared with life. Sirens and horns, music blaring from the open window of another apartment, the shrieking laughter of people enjoying the early evening. She gazed out of the window, her eyes catching on the usual things that faced their cozy (read: cramped) place. There was a glimmer of light as the sun reflected off glass panes, and the zigzag of a fire escape from the building opposite them. The same three apartments always had their blinds wide open—either inviting voyeurism or not caring enough to prevent it.

Sometimes she wondered about their lives. Had they been stuck and struggling at some point like her? Had they lost faith in themselves and the world?

After she got fired, Isla had assumed it would all blow over if she kept a low profile and didn’t make matters worse. But then Amanda’s movie tanked and all her sponsorships fell through, and people stopped taking Isla’s calls. Even when she’d tried to laugh the whole thing off as a “Miley Cyrus exercise” her contacts had frozen harder than an Upper East Sider’s Botoxed face.

New York could be like that—when you were successful it felt as though the sun was made of gold. And when you fell from grace, you hit the concrete so hard you shattered every bone in your body.

How much longer was she going to be able to keep faking that everything would be fine? Rent was due next week and the final payment for Dani’s elite ballet camp had come out of her account a few days ago. Isla’s eyes had watered at the amount. But Dani had worked so hard, practicing every day and pushing herself to the limit to beat out the rich kids with their prestigious coaches and private lessons and their lifetimes of opportunity.

How could Isla pull the rug out from under Dani like that? What kind of lesson would that be teaching her?

“You’ll figure this out,” she said to herself. “Someone will hire you.”

After all, she had to make it work. Because letting her sister down was not an option.

Excerpted from The Dachshund Wears Prada by Stefanie London, Copyright © 2022 by Stefanie Little. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

My Thoughts

A social media disaster, a pampered dog, and an improbable romance came together to provide me with a fun, feel-good read that left me smiling and oh so happy!

Admittedly, I don’t often read romance. But put a dog on the cover, and I’m powerless to resist.

I loved all the characters, though I’m biased toward Camilla the Dachshund.

This isn’t a sappy romance, nor is it a lust-fueled instant attraction kind of thing. The relationship is a slow burn that unfolds naturally and feels realistic.

The plot moves at a good pace, and it’s wacky without being ridiculous. We also have some serious and thoughtful content perfectly woven in.

The Dachshund Wears Prada is ideal for a few hours of entertainment, especially when you need a break from the harshness of reality.

*This is the first book in the new Paws in the City series. It works perfectly as a stand-alone, giving us closure at the end.*

About the Author

Stefanie London is a USA Today Bestselling author of contemporary romance. Her books have been called “genuinely entertaining and memorable” by Booklist, and her writing praised as “elegant, descriptive and delectable” by RT Magazine. Originally from Australia, she now lives in Toronto with her very own hero and is doing her best to travel the world. She frequently indulges her passions for lipstick, good coffee, books and anything zombie related.

Social Links:
Author Website
Instagram: @stefanielondon
Facebook: @London’s Lovelies
Goodreads

The post New Release Spotlight and Review — THE DACHSHUND WEARS PRADA: Paws in the City, Book 1 by Stefanie London appeared first on Quiet Fury Books.

New Release Spotlight — THE RISING: Olivia Callahan Suspense by Kerry Peresta

After an assault that landed her in a hospital as a Jane Doe two years earlier, Olivia Callahan has regained her speech, movement, and much of the memory she lost due to a traumatic brain injury. The media hype about the incident has faded away, and Olivia is ready to rebuild her life, but her therapist insists she must continue to look back in order to move forward. The only person that can help her recall specifics is her abusive ex-husband, Monty, who is in prison for murder. The thought of talking to Monty makes her skin crawl, but for her daughters’ sake and her own sanity, she must learn more about who she was before the attack.

Just as the pieces of her life start falling into place, she stumbles across the still-warm body of an old friend who has been gruesomely murdered. Her dream of pursuing a peaceful existence is shattered when she learns the killer left evidence behind to implicate her in the murder. The only person that would want to sabotage her is Monty—but he’s in prison! Something sinister is going on, and Olivia is desperate to uncover the truth before another senseless murder is committed.

Book Details:

Genre: Psychological Suspense, Thriller, Crime Fiction, Suspense, Mystery
Published by: Level Best Books
Publication Date: March 29, 2022
Number of Pages: 300
ISBN: 168512092X (ISBN-13: 978-1685120924)
Series: Olivia Callahan Suspense, Book 2
Book Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Read an excerpt:“How low you fall points to how high you’ll rise.”
~Matshona Dhliwayo

The stark buildings and barbed-wire-topped walls surrounding the correctional facility reminded me of a Hitchcock movie.

My fingers tightened on the steering wheel. I found a parking spot, and waited in the car a minute, taking in the starkness and finality of a prison compound. My heart did a little lurch when I thought about Monty—my ex-husband and the father of my two daughters—inside. Incarcerated. I guess since I hadn’t seen him since his indictment, it didn’t seem real.

However, I’d learned that having sympathy for Monty was like having sympathy for a snake just before it sank its fangs. “It’s been eighteen months. You can keep it together with this psycho,” I hissed to myself. I hiked my purse onto my shoulder and walked out into the buttery sunshine toward the visitors’ entrance.

I presented my driver’s license, endured a frisk, offered my hand for the fingerprint process, and walked through the metal detector, which of course, went off. With stoic resignation, I endured another frisk, a few hard glances from the guards, and eventually pulled the culprit from the pocket of my pants, an aluminum foil candy bar wrapper.

While I waited for Monty at one of the small, circular tables in the visitors’ room, I scanned the list of do’s and don’ts. Hands must be visible at all times. Vulgar language not allowed. No passing anything to the prisoner. No jewelry other than a wedding band or religious necklace.

I stared at my hands, sticky with sweat. My heart beat in my throat.

I lifted my curls off my forehead and fanned my face with one hand. Three other visitors sat at tables. One woman with graying hair piled like a crown on her head stared at the floor. When she noticed that I was looking at her, she raised her head and threw me a sad smile. A younger woman at another table struggled to keep two young children under control, and an older couple with stress-lined faces whispered to each other as they waited. The room had tan, cinder block walls, a drop-in ceiling with grid tiles that probably hid video cameras, and a single door. No windows. A scrawny, fake plant in one corner made a half-hearted attempt at civility.

The metal door opened. My thoughts were mush, a blender on high. Could I do this? After two years of physical therapy, occupational therapy, and every other kind of therapy the docs could throw at me, shouldn’t I react better than this?

Remember, they’re only feelings.

I squared my shoulders. Wiped my palms on my pants.

As Monty offered his cuffed wrists to the corrections officer, he scanned the room under lowered eyelids. When he saw me, he gave me a scorched- earth glare. After the guard removed his handcuffs, he shook out his arms and rubbed his wrists. The raven-black hair was longer, and brushed his shoulders. He’d been working out. A lot. He wore a loose-fitting top and pants. Orange. As usual, he was larger than life, and in the bright white of the visiting space, surrounded by matching plastic tables and chairs, he was a raven-haired Schwarzenegger in a room full of Danny DeVito’s. I’d once had hope for reconciliation. The thought gave me the shakes now.

He dropped into the chair across from me and plopped his hands on the table. “What do you want?”

I spent a few seconds examining his face—this man I’d spent twenty, long years trying to please, and the reason I’d been assaulted and left for dead by Niles Peterson, a wreck of a man whose life Monty had destroyed as well.

The man responsible for my convoluted recovery from a brain injury that stole my past. Even after two years, I still had huge gaps in my memory, and staring at him felt like staring at a stranger instead of an ex-husband. “My therapist says I need to look back to move forward. I wanted to ask you a few questions, that’s all.”

“Okay,” he grumbled. “I’ll give you a few minutes. Oh, and you’ll love this. I have to attend counseling sessions about how to keep my ‘darker dispositions’ under control, and I have one of those in thirty minutes.”

Resisting a smile, I quipped, “Are they helping?” He rolled his eyes. “What are the questions?”

“I still have problems remembering stuff. There are things I need to… figure out about who I was before—”

“Before you hooked up with my ole’ buddy Niles?” he interrupted, with a smirk. “Before you threw away everything we had? Before you got yourself in a situation that could’ve gotten you killed? Before you started treating me like a piece of shit?”

I was careful not to react. I’d had enough therapy to understand how to treat a control freak that tried to make me the reason he ended up in prison. That part of my life—the part where Monty had been in charge and his spouse had to obey or else—was over. “Are you done?” I asked.

He clamped his lips together.

I folded my hands on the table and leaned in. “I’ll get right to the point. What drew you to me in the first place? What was I like before the accident, from your perspective?”

Monty tried to get comfortable in the plastic chair. Beneath his immense bulk, it seemed like a child’s chair. “Is that how you’re dealing with it?” His lips twisted in disgust. “It was an assault, Olivia. He tried to rape you, for God’s sake.”

I looked away. “It’s over, and he’s in the ground, thanks to you.”

He crossed his arms and glared. A corrections officer lifted his hand. With a grunt, Monty slapped both hands on the small table where the officer could see them.

After a few beats, he sneered, “You mean besides the obvious attraction of an older guy to a high school girl?” “Give me a break, Monty.”

He chuckled. “You were kind of…I don’t know…scared. I was drawn to you in a protective way. You were shy.”

I frowned. “What was I scared of?”

“Your crazy mom had married some jerk that kept you off balance all the time. Don’t you remember him?”

I thought for a few seconds. Nothing came.

“That coma still messes with you, doesn’t it? Well…might be good not to remember. Maybe he did things to you that he shouldn’t have.” Monty raised his eyebrows up and down.

I wanted to slap him, but I kept my expression neutral.

“A brain injury recovery is unpredictable. I still lose memories, even if someone has drilled them into me. I’m trying to use visualization. I have this feeling…that if I can see it, the rest will be like dominos.”

“So you may not ever remember? Even the good things about our marriage?”

I laughed. “We must have very different perspectives about the word ‘good’, Monty.”

Monty’s jaw muscles flexed. “Next?”

“Was I a capable mother? Was I available and…loving to the kids?”

Maybe it was my imagination, but his lower lip quivered. Did the guy have a heart after all? I’d always believed he loved our daughters. I hoped this was true.

“Olivia, you were a good mother. We had our problems, but you made a good home, and took excellent care of the kids. You were at every freakin’ event, every school fundraiser, everything.” He scowled. “I took a big back seat to the kids.”

“What problems did we have? When did they start?”

He leaned in. “You don’t remember our sex life? How terrible it was? Nothing I could do would get you to….” He shook his head. “You couldn’t even fix a decent meal. You should have been grateful you married someone like me so I could…teach you things.”

CHAPTER ONE

“Keep your voice down!” I insisted, embarrassed.

He cocked his head and grinned. “You always had this…desperate need for my approval or whatever. And when you conveniently avoided telling me you weren’t taking birth control it caused a lot of issues that could’ve been avoided.” He snorted. “Like being in here.”

I tried to rein in my disgust.

“So, let me get this straight. Your priority in our marriage was sex and good food and to pin all our issues on your child bride?” My tone hardened. “A young woman who came from a single-parent home? Who had no understanding what a good and normal guy was like?”

He gave me a look that could peel the skin off my face.

“How did you react when I didn’t do things the way you wanted?” I continued.

“Like any man who’d been disrespected. I corrected the issue.”

“How? By yelling? Physical force? Kicking your pregnant wife in the stomach?” This was a memory I had recovered.

A vein pulsed in his neck.

“How often, Monty? Were these reactions a…a lifestyle in our marriage?” “Look,” he snarled, “I don’t know that this is productive.”

“It is for me,” I said, brightly.

I glanced at the closest officer. He had his hands full with an issue at one of the other tables.

“Mom told me that Serena and Lilly floated out to sea one time, on a rubber raft. Do you remember that?”

His eyes found a spot on the wall.

“So you do remember. What happened?”

“Look, they were, I don’t know, four and six or so. I didn’t think it would be a problem for me to run grab a drink from our bag, and come back. I was gone less than five minutes. How could I know they’d lose control of the raft?”

An earthquake of anger shot through me. “You turned your back on a four-year-old and a six-year-old and expected them to have control of a raft? They were babies!”

“Yeah. Well.” He rose. “Looks like this question thing of yours isn’t working for me.” He pushed his chair in with a bang. The correctional officer gave him a look. Monty strode to the officer’s station and held out his wrists. Adrenaline made me a little shaky after he’d gone, but it wasn’t from fear of the man. My therapist would call this real progress.

I left the room and gathered my things from the visitors’ processing center. As I walked out of the prison facility, all I could think about was…why? Why had I married this guy? And stayed for twenty years? I couldn’t even remember myself as a person who could do that.

At least I’d dragged more information out of him. I was determined to piece together the puzzle of the past I’d lost.

***

Excerpt from The Rising by Kerry L Peresta. Copyright 2022 by Kerry L Peresta. Reproduced with permission from Kerry L Peresta. All rights reserved.

Interview with Kerry Peresta

Tell us about your main character.

Olivia is still not sure who she is, but she’s on her way.

After a painful rehabilitation due to a traumatic brain injury (TBI)  resulting from  an assault, Olivia is seeking an identity outside the realm of ‘victim’. She cannot remember much of her past and is looking for answers, but her abusive ex is the only one that can unlock certain memories, and she’d rather slit her wrists than visit him in prison. Olivia is determined to forge new paths in spite of the various brain blips and emotional swings that accompany recovery from a TBI. Her supportive aren’t sure about Olivia’s new direction in life, but one thing is certain…Olivia no longer cares much about what other people think, and she’s reaching for the sky.

Which is your favorite minor character and why?

Olivia’s older daughter, Serena.

Serena is now a sophomore in college, and has been through a lot with her mother’s injury and divorce. Family secrets have spilled, and she’s wrestling with how to adapt, and her mom is unavailable much of the time due to her constant search for who she is vs. who she was. She acts out in college, and finds that making certain choices fueled by anger and resentment are NOT the way to shore up one’s life. This is a lovely young woman who is learning fast that life is not always easy, or fair.

If your book were made into a movie, who would you like to play the lead characters?

Emma Stone, or Amy Adams for Olivia, Robert Downey Jr. for Monty, the abusive ex; Jessica Lange or Meryl Streep for Sophie, Olivia’s over-the-top mom, Matthew McConaughey for Detective Hunter Faraday. Dream team! 

Tell us something funny about one of your characters.

Hazel Magelssen is Olivia’s last-resort therapist when all the others fade away. Olivia loves Hazel because she is unconventional, and a spitfire. Of indeterminate age (because she won’t tell anyone) she wears Chanel scarves, Chanel lipstick, and loves loudly. Her springy, salt-and-pepper hair and round, translucent glasses give her a stylish librarian vibe. Her clients tend to feel adopted instead of analyzed. When Hazel and Olivia’s mother, Sophie lock horns in a group session, it is ironic and hilarious because they are so alike that they can’t help but despise each other.

I’m inviting Olivia to dinner. What should I make?

Definitely not chicken! Olivia’s attacker had just made her a Chipotle chicken dinner before things went sideways. Olivia loves seafood and a good steak and great coffee. She is a wine-lover, so the meal should include the appropriate wine. I would say a pasta dish or a medium-rare filet with asparagus. Also, hot tea after the meal and after the wine bottle is depleted. Olivia, a Maryland girl, loves her hot tea.

Olivia is planning a vacation. Where is she going?

Oh, she’s going to Hilton Head Island, SC! This has been her family’s vacation spot more than twenty years. She adores the Live oaks, the Spanish moss, the marshes, and the laid-back approach. Hilton Head is not your typical beach town. She loves the incredible restaurants and the finest jazz in the world at the Jazz Corner. Though memories sometimes stir of her doomed marriage and abusive ex, she refuses to let it cloud her love for Hilton Head Island and the Lowcountry.

Were you surprised by the behavior of any of your characters or the direction of your plot at any point while writing?

Of course! My characters always surprise me! When one of Olivia’s closest friends betrays her, it’s a big surprise to me. I have to smile, because I remember it simply…happening underneath my fingers and I thought…ooooh, that’s a great twist! Though I do try to outline my plot points first, it is a delight to see where the story goes in my head…in spite of the plot points. Sometimes, they just have to change! And of course, the crime…I’m never sure how that is all going to play out, and it’s SO surprising to me when I come up with something bizarre. I think to myself…wow. Where did that come from?

Please share a few favorite lines or one paragraph.

A finger of anger played with my jaw muscles.

“Oh, well, that explains     everything now, doesn’t it?”

I jumped off the white wicker loveseat and stalked down the three stairs and into the grass. Hannah knew all my secrets and had supported and strengthened me during my recovery. Had taken my girls to school, and volunteered with me for sports events and homeroom activities. What was this? How should I feel? He wasn’t my husband anymore, and would never be, yet…here he was, still having this ponderous, stifling effect on me. If I wanted anything  in life post-Monty, I wanted him off my back and out of my life. I pictured him laughing his ass off in his cell when he thought about the effect this news would have on me. And make no mistake, this guy had wanted me to know.

How did you come up with the title?

Olivia’s journey has been a struggle to ‘get back up’ after the assault. Bedridden for a couple of weeks, unaware of who she was, unable to move or speak or remember anything, the terror of those days and weeks of recovery stay with her. THE RISING, the second in the series, is about shaking off terror. Living without fear. Getting her life back.

However, getting her life back is proving a complex matter. In Book One, she discovers her life before the assault was not exactly something she’d be wise to reclaim, but Olivia is trying her best to rise. After two years of therapy and check-ups, and reconnecting with her daughters, she has patched together a life, but it doesn’t have direction. She longs to build a career, find an intelligent direction, and shed her identity as a victimized, passive wife.

Tell us about your cover art and how it pertains to your story.

Symbolic of hope and a crescendo of energy that pushes and pulls oceans—the moon is reflective of a cycle that waxes and wanes like the seasons of our own life experiences. A cycle that reflects the brightness of the sun at its peak, and even when it diminishes and hides in the new moon phase, it is quietly waiting for the inevitable full illumination phase. Olivia is searching for full illumination. She just needs to find the right sun to reflect.

Of all the books out there, why should readers choose this one?

I always keep in mind how my own life, and those of others around me, have taken circuitous routes to get where they are going. Routes that had lots of dark detours and hard places and terrible challenges. My books seek to point out that everyone struggles with their own particular brand of difficulty. That doesn’t make us bad people, or emotionally handicapped, or hopeless. It just gives us opportunities to flex and grow and birth a better, stronger outlook. Many people give up. I strive to say, again and again, ‘Don’t give up!’ I find that my readers say similar things in my reviews, among them: ‘I was cheering for Olivia all the way’! This makes me incredibly happy.

About the Author

Kerry’s publishing credits include a popular newspaper column, “The Lighter Side,” (2009—2011), and magazine articles in Local Life Magazine,The Bluffton Breeze, Lady Lowcountry, and Island Events Magazine. She is the author of three published novels, The Hunting, women’s fiction, The Deadening, Book One of the Olivia Callahan Suspense Series, and The Rising, Book Two. Book Three in this series releases in 2023 by Level Best Books. She spent twenty-five years in advertising as an account manager, creative director, editor, and copywriter. She is past chapter president of the Maryland Writers’ Association and a current member and presenter of Hilton Head Island Writers’ Network, South Carolina Writers Association, and the Sisters in Crime organization. Kerry and her husband moved to Hilton Head Island, SC, in 2015. She is the mother of four adult children, and has a bunch of wonderful grandkids who remind her what life is all about.

Catch Up With Kerry L Peresta:
www.KerryPeresta.net
Goodreads
BookBub – @kerryperesta
Instagram – @kerryperesta
Twitter – @kerryperesta
Facebook – @klperesta

 

 

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Book Review — BURIED IN A GOOD BOOK: A By the Book Mystery by Tamara Berry

Don’t miss the first book in a brand-new gripping and hilarious bookish cozy mystery series by author Tamara Berry!

Bestselling thriller writer Tess Harrow is almost at the end of her rope when she arrives with her teenage daughter at her grandfather’s rustic cabin in the woods. She hopes this will be a time for them to heal and bond after Tess’s recent divorce, but they’ve barely made it through the door when an explosion shakes the cabin. Suddenly it’s raining fish guts and…is that a human arm?

Tess was hardly convincing Gertie that a summer without Wi-Fi and running water would be an adventure. Now she’s thrust into a murder investigation, neighbors are saying they’ve spotted Bigfoot in the woods near her cabin, and the local sheriff is the spitting image of her character Detective Gabriel Gonzales—something he’s less than thrilled about. With so much more than her daughter’s summer plans at stake, it’s up to Tess to solve this case before anyone else gets hurt.

Releases May 24, 2022

Amazon | Goodreads

My Thoughts

Tess is a thriller writer who gets herself tangled up in a real-life murder investigation while staying in a cabin in a rural, mountain town. Perfect setup for a fun mystery.

While I didn’t always love Tess’s choices as a parent, I did love her tenacity. I also appreciated that her behavior made sense for who she was as a person, even if I didn’t always agree with her.

The plot moved at a good pace and kept me guessing. We have a bit of drama and a budding romance along with the investigation.

Overall, this is a great start to a new mystery series.

*I received an ARC from Poisoned Pen Press.*

The post Book Review — BURIED IN A GOOD BOOK: A By the Book Mystery by Tamara Berry appeared first on Quiet Fury Books.

New Release Spotlight — HOSTILE INTENT: A Matt Drake Novel by Don Bentley

In the espionage community, Vienna is known as the City of Spies, and Matt Drake is about to learn why in the latest electrifying thriller from the New York Times Bestselling author of Tom Clancy Target Acquired and The Outside Man.

When a mysterious walk-in to the US embassy in Vienna claims to have critical information about a Russian intelligence operation, he raises eyebrows. But when he asks for Matt Drake by name and calls himself the Irishman, he gets the DIA’s premier case officer on a one-way flight. Matt arrives to find Austria’s charming capital lousy with intelligence officers, all swirling around Nolan Burke—a onetime member of the real IRA. But before Matt can debrief Nolan, the Irishman is kidnapped by a Russian direct action team. Now Matt must find a way to repay the debt of honor he owes Nolan while stopping World War III in the process.

Published May 3, 2022 by Berkley Books

Amazon | Goodreads

Excerpt

Matthew? Is that you?”

“Yep,” I said, holding the phone between my ear and shoulder as I packed my shooting gear into my range bag.

Even though our range time had been nearly complete before the interrupting phone call, Laila had been less than thrilled with our abrupt departure. She was now in the gun store attached to the range, expressing her annoyance in a manner designed to get my attention.

Shopping.

Shopping for a baby Glock to carry in her purse.

What a woman.

“Then use your man voice. I can barely hear you over this racket.”

I paused in the middle of zipping the bag closed. The check-in guy had been kind, or terrified, enough to let me take the call in his office. The soundproofing in the door and walls rendered a silence absolute enough to hear my heartbeat.

“Where are you, Chief?” I said, dreading the answer.

“At a slam-poetry reading. At least, that’s what the sign says. But none of it even rhymes. And don’t get me started on the audience full of hipster jackasses. Cups of fufu coffee are the only thing slamming in this joint.”

I could hear the disappointment in his voice even as I took a seat in the flimsy chair opposite the metal desk. Defense Intelligence Agency Branch Chief James Scott Glass, former Army Special Forces team sergeant and current night terror to jihadis everywhere, was attending a slam-poetry reading.

If this wasn’t a sign of the apocalypse, I wasn’t sure what was.

“Can you hear me now?” I said, shouting into the phone.

“No,” James said. “Between the screaming from the stage and the yapping audience, I’ve been in firefights that were quieter. Wait one. QUIET.”

The silence that greeted James’s outburst made my soundproof room seem loud.

My boss certainly knew how to work a room.

“Speak, Matthew,” James said, coming back on the line.

“Still here, Chief,” I said.

I debated barking, but didn’t. Mostly because I was an adult and whatever had James desperate enough to call me from a slam-poetry session probably wasn’t a laughing matter. But also because even ten years into forced medical retirement, my boss was not a man to be trifled with.

“Good,” James said. “I need you to come in. Now.”

“I just landed last night. I haven’t even been home for twelve hours. I’d remind you that I’m on vacation, but I suspect you’re not familiar with the term. It’s Sunday. Give me twenty-four hours with my wife, and I’ll grab the direct to Washington Reagan tomorrow. I’ll be in the office before lunch. The world’s not gonna end today.”

I thought it was a pretty good argument.

James didn’t agree.

“You’re not going to DC,” James said. “Our embassy in Vienna had a walk-in.”

Walk-in was slang for someone who came in off the street purporting to have information of interest to the US government. The vast majority of these folks were people hoping to trade something of minimal value for the ultimate prize-US citizenship. As such, walk-ins were normally relegated to the most junior CIA or DIA officer. But occasionally something of value did stroll in the door. If James was calling, I had to think the Vienna walk-in fell into this category.

“Can you give me any specifics?”

“Not over an open line. But I will say this-the walk-in asked for you. By name.”

That was interesting, but not entirely unexpected. As an officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency, I ran and recruited assets the world over. While the goal of every recruitment was to snare an asset who produced meaningful intelligence for the duration of their career, this wasn’t always the case. Sometimes an asset transitioned to a job without the requisite access. Sometimes they just stopped producing. When this happened, the asset was formally closed, but I always tried to part ways on good terms.

Every now and then, dormant assets found themselves in a position where they could again become useful. This was why I always provided mine with an email address and a phrase to employ if they needed to reestablish contact. These instructions didn’t include plans to visit the American embassy, but the assets I ran were, by and large, intelligent men and women. If they believed that a crash meeting at the embassy was necessary, I wasn’t going to second-guess them.

As embassies went, Vienna was one of the most crucial. Although the Cold War had ended more than thirty years ago, Vienna was still a city of spies. Its central European location made the Austrian capital a geographical crossroads between East and West. Vienna would be an ideal venue for a spy on the run to contact an old handler.

“Which of my aliases did the walk-in use?” I said.

“You’re not listening, Matthew,” James said. “He asked for you by name. Your true name.”

I sucked in a breath, contemplating James’s answer. Like any sane handler, I never operated under true name. If this man knew my identity, he merited my attention.

“What’s his name?” I said.

“Wouldn’t give one. Just a message. He said to tell you the Irishman was calling in a favor. Ring a bell?”

It did.

“I’m booking a ticket to Vienna,” I said.

“No need. A Gulfstream’s sitting on the tarmac at Austin-Bergstrom. Get moving.”

Excerpted from HOSTILE INTENT by Don Bentley, published by Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2022

About the Author

Don Bentley is the New York Times bestselling author of Tom Clancy Target Acquired and the Matt Drake series (Without Sanction & The Outside Man). Don is a former FBI Special Agent, SWAT Team member, and Army Apache helicopter pilot. Learn more at www.donbentleybooks.com.



Photo Credit: Robin Winkles Photography

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Fictional Memoir Spotlight — IN THE MIDDLE by Carin Fahr Shulusky

Carrie Young had it all. She was a successful account executive for a small advertising agency and still managed to be a loving wife and dutiful mother until her mother fell suddenly ill. As the middle child, Carrie was never that close to her mother, but now she was needed to help with the overwhelming task of taking care of her seriously ill mother. The demands of hospitalization, doctors’ appointments and daily care throw her once prefect life in near chaos. Disagreements with her siblings, her boss and her mother make her resentful of this new responsibility. The one bright spot is the chance to know her mother’s stories of the depression and post war struggle as she never had before. Even as her once perfect life falls apart, she finds a purpose in it all.

Book Details
Genre: Fictional Memoir
Published by: Fossil Creek Press
Publication Date: January 18, 2021
Number of Pages: 198
ISBN: ‘9781736241707
Purchase Your Copy Today: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads Read an excerpt:

By this time, Mom was mobile enough to get to the doctor, or at least so the insurance company determined. This meant we could no longer get home visits paid by insurance, so Maria, John, and I had to find a way to get Mom through the gauntlet of doctors.

Each organ of Mom’s body had its own doctor: cardiologist, neurologist, urologist, gynecologist, optometrist, dermatologist, podiatrist, and dentist. Everything was failing and in need of repair. I actually think we could take Mom to a different doctor every day of the week. As it was, we managed the most urgent needs and hoped for the best with the rest. Maria took Mom to the cardiologist, who was managing her medications and needed to take regular blood levels. I took Mom to the urologist because she was having urinary tract troubles, possibly caused by the medications prescribed by the cardiologist. John took Mom to the physical therapist, who could also no longer make home visits on insurance. Physical therapy was prescribed by the cardiologist to help her get more mobile.

Each trip out required us to call her multiple times to remind her of the appointment, then we had to arrive nearly an hour early because she would invariably not be ready. Getting Mom ready for a doctor visit required finding clean clothes, inserting hearing aids, and getting her false teeth in place—and making sure she made a bathroom visit. Before leaving we would have to locate her insurance card, her checkbook, her purse, scarf, and coat.

I’d pull my car up to her front porch through the lawn so Mom would have the least number of steps from house to car. Getting into the car was difficult to the extreme. Once I had Mom in the car, I’d load her walker and cane in the trunk.

When we got to the doctor, we would have to reverse the process: get the walker out of the trunk and Mom in the door and find a place for her to sit while I parked the car. I’d run back in before Mom decided to try to find her own way up the elevator to the doctor’s office or some thoughtful person decided to help and I’d lose her.

I thought it would be easier when we were finally in the doctor’s office until the nurse said she’d need a urine sample and handed Mom a cup. The idea of this eighty-two-year-old lady, who could hardly use the toilet herself and missed it most of the time, managing to actually get urine in a cup was so ludicrous I just burst out laughing. The nurse was not amused. She gave me an incriminating look, put the cup back and held up a “hat” that fit over the whole toilet seat. Still chuckling despite my best efforts to stop, I shook my head in agreement and lead Mom to the bathroom. The rest of the visit went fairly normal.

Before I could go in with my mom, the nurse had to ask her if it was okay that this person—me—could come into the exam room. Mom looked puzzled. The nurse muttered something about privacy laws and we went in. No one noticed that I was holding my breath. I was terrified that Mom would say no.

No one knew what would come out of her mouth next. If I didn’t go in, the doctor would surely get incorrect information and whatever the doctor told Mom would be lost. She could hardly remember having a doctor visit, much less what he said. But I couldn’t argue the point. What was I supposed to say? Hey guys, she’s half crazy. Why are you asking her? Not only would that get me nowhere, it would hurt Mom’s feelings. Whoever proposed the privacy laws surely doesn’t have aging parents. Fortunately, she said yes, so I could enter.

The doctor discussed why she was having frequent urinary tract infections, which I’m sure went right over her head. Then he said, “We should see you back next month.”

I want to shout, No, please no, but I said, “Is it necessary? I have to take a day off work to get her here,” I pleaded.

Mom caught that too well and said, “I’m sure Maria will be glad to bring me.”

Now, the thing I was trying so hard to avoid was out. I made a great effort to hide from Mom my frustration and anxiety over losing a day’s work. I didn’t want her to think my work was more important than her. I didn’t want to think that either, but there it was, always under the surface, in the deep dark places of my ambition.

I had taken a half day off, left at noon, and didn’t plan to return to work. My boss would never understand this.

Shopping with Mom on the Internet didn’t work out too well. Visualizing an item in one dimension just wasn’t working for her, so I thought we would try the old fashion way. I knew Mom wanted to go to Penney’s so I thought we would start there. I told Mom the mall had wheelchairs we could borrow, but she was so negative on that idea that I quickly let it drop. Even with Mom’s handicap parking pass, we couldn’t get close enough to the store, so I pulled right in front, got the walker from my trunk, and helped her in the store. It would have worked well if the store had any place to sit, but there was nothing.

I told Mom to go on in the store and I’d catch up with her. By the time I had parked and caught up, she had already found two items she wanted: one for Maria and one for Katie. She next wanted to buy John a pair of shoes, so I helped her to the shoe department and she quickly found a pair of work shoes that she wanted. I made sure we had all the receipts tucked neatly in her purse. She wanted to find a new blouse for Christmas, so we made our way to an elevator and up to the next floor. She walked a small way and suddenly stopped.

“I don’t think I can go any further,” Mom said. “I’m just worn out.”

I knew this was a stretch, but I was hopeful. I asked the sales lady if there were any chairs in the store. To my surprise, she found a folding chair from the storeroom and brought it out for Mom. While Mom rested comfortably—more or less—in the chair, I brought her several styles and colors of shirts. She picked one and I purchased it for her.

“We could go to another store if you would let me get a wheelchair,” I offered.

“No,” she said firmly. “It’s not time for a wheelchair yet. I’ll get Maria to take me another day. I think I need to go home.”

On the way home, we passed our favorite soft-serve ice cream store.

“How about an ice cream cone?” I asked.

“That sounds lovely,” Mom said. We could always agree on ice cream. We had a wonderful time eating our ice cream. I suppose I inherited my passion for the stuff from Mom. With the happy ice-cream high, we parted cheerfully. I carried all her purchases to her bedroom as directed and promised to return to help with Christmas decoration.

—Excerpt from In the Middle by Carin Fahr Shulusky. Copyright 2021 by Carin Fahr Shulusky. Reproduced with permission from Carin Fahr Shulusky. All rights reserved.About the Author

Carin Fahr Shulusky was born and raised in west St. Louis County. She attended the University of Missouri, Columbia, where she received a B.J (Bachelor of Journalism). After college she worked in advertising for GE and Monsanto. She was the first professional woman in her division of each. After 25 years in Marketing, she created her own firm, Marketing Alliance. She was president of Marketing Alliance, from 2002 – 2014. She is a past-president of the Business Marketing Association of St. Louis. Carin Fahr is married to Richard Shulusky. They have two grown children and one marvelous granddaughter. Grandma Carin has a life long love of cooking, even writing her own cookbook. In 2014 Carin retired to devote full time to writing. Her first book, In the Middle was inspired by her own battle to care for her beloved mother, Dorothy Fahr. Many of the stories Carrie Young’s mother tells her in In the Middle came from Carin’s mother. Carin is a lifelong member of, Pathfinder Church in Ellisville, Missouri, where she volunteers in early childhood.

Find Carin Online:carinshulusky.com
Goodreads
Instagram – @cshulusky
Twitter – @shulusky
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Spotlight on BARONS OF OARTHECA: The Oarthecan Star Saga, Book 2 by James Siewert

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and your enemies bolder…

Headed in opposite galactic directions, Rowland Hale and Toar Grithrawrscion must find a way to reunite despite the myriad of challenges dogging their every step. An unwelcome surprise finds Rowland picking up the pieces of what he thought was his life, and Toar learns the hard way that the Pryok’tel always settle the score.

Can their blossoming relationship survive, or will it be torn to bits between needle-sharp teeth?

In Barons of Oartheca, the exciting sequel to the one-of-a-kind adventure Allure of Oartheca, James Siewert plunges our two heroes into an epic fight for survival with adversaries both old and new, and asks the question, ‘Is family those you love, or those you trust … with your life?’

Baron of Oartheca
James Siewert
Series Title: The Oarthecan Star Saga
Position (Number) in Series: Second
Publisher: Self-Published
Release Date: Saturday, April 30 2022
Cover Artist: Ryan Carriere

Book Links:
Universal
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Amazon CA
Goodreads

Excerpt

Nothing quite like being marched down the hallway by a squad of elite Pryok’tel slavers to put a dampener on your day. Shame, especially since up until now, I was otherwise having a fantastic time aboard the Oarthecan Space Services Navy (OSSN) Grolthon’s Spear.

It’s my sixth, and by all appearances, last day aboard the Spear, and even though during this time I was both a patient recovering from a near-fatal plasma blast and a prisoner in custody for breaking the Oarthecan Decree, I felt like I’d been on a bit of a holiday, really. It’s a misery that it’s come to an end the way it has—we were scheduled to arrive home tomorrow, but that’s all gone up in smoke.

Was looking forward to seeing my Dad, I was. He’d managed, under his authority as the High Baron Grithrawr XXI, to send me a personal message, which, due to my previous conviction in getting the Baron Thursk killed, is technically against the law. However, Dad’s not used to having his will thwarted, and I suspect that my near-death experience bought him the leverage he needed to bend the rules.

The message was genuinely kindly, if somewhat stern, which is a good summation of my baron-father in general. Though he is looking forward to me being home, Dad’s not entirely pleased with my recent escapades. Have the feeling he’s going to be far less pleased with my current ones, however.

Pity about all this, especially since I’m in a much better place health-wise than when I first arrived on the Spear, entirely due to the excellent care of my doctor, Yozthren Letherclan—or due to his penchant for unnecessary needles, Dr. Pokey, if he’s cared for you long enough. I hope he’s all right; it’s been a horrid morning for everyone aboard the Spear, and I’m worried, to a rage, about what these sireless Pryok’tel ghouls have planned for us.

Under Dr. Pokey’s vigilant eye (and still quite talented hands, but that’s just between him and me), I’ve all but made a full recovery from a rifle-shot that burned a fist-sized hole in my left side, just above my hip. I’ve had an intestine graft and a freshly cloned gallbladder installed, and according to yesterday’s medical exam, both have set up shop like they’ve always been there.

And while my two vaporised kidneys and damaged liver were still on my list of things to get sorted, Dr. Pokey told me there’s no desperate need for those, as my remaining two kidneys are handling things well enough and my liver’s at just under eighty percent. An incredible recovery, Dr. Pokey remarked, but it all seems a bit of a waste now.

As for my arrest for having broken the Oarthecan Decree that prevents contact between Oarth and human males (which I most thoroughly, and enjoyably, accomplished)—well, thanks to the kindness of Derrarvral Henthrothsire, captain of the Grolthon’s Spear, that’s been more of a formality than an actuality. Never even saw the brig, so kind he’s been to me.

The Decree, put in place to prevent contact with a human male’s permanent and lethally-charged Allure (that they have no control over, either), is one that is not to be trifled with, yet trifled with it I did: about a week ago, I’d rescued said human male, the incredibly handsome, wondrously intelligent and terrifically brave Rowland Hale, after his ship had been destroyed during a Pryok’tel raid. I then made the decision to help Rowland recover both his kidnapped crew and a stolen VEILLED system, which, had it fallen into the hands of the Pryok’tel, would have resulted in them learning how to turn their ships invisible.

Normally, the punishment for breaking the Decree is essentially life-time imprisonment and being permanently exiled from your family. So far, I’ve only been charged with breaking the Decree, and there’s quite a lot of mitigating circumstances that might save me from being convicted: my meeting Rowland was under an act of mercy, and our subsequent adventure not only prevented the VEILLED technology from being harvested, but also resulted in the rescue of his crew and twenty Oarth. Importantly, two of the rescued Oarth were barons, and one was an embercoat drone, our red-furred cousins who up until that rescue were thought to have been driven to extinction.

So instead of being sent to the brig for my crime, Derrar gave me the Spear’s guest suite, the one that’s usually reserved for high-ranking dignitaries. While not as fine as the Spear’s barons’ quarters, my room was nevertheless quite on the luxurious side. Tastefully decorated and wonderfully spacious, with good, sensible Oarthecan architecture throughout—curved walls, flowing lines, and not a sharp corner in sight.

On my first night, I discovered that I could stand fully upright, even on my tippy-toes, and still have excellent clearance for my head, which was a treat I’d not enjoyed on a spacecraft for quite some time.

That, and my sleeping pit was so large and lush that I could stretch out entirely and not even reach the sides, and sink down deep for a proper sleep. Ah, I’ll miss that, for certain—the Pryok’tel don’t deem us Oarth worthy of proper rest, let alone proper bedding—it’s the cold floor for us drones, if we manage to survive ‘till bedtime, that is.

At this particular moment, I’m being led down the hallways of the Grolthon’s Spear by my nose via a sturdy metal chain that’s attached to a muzzle I’ve been forced to wear, and with the other end in the hands of the lead Pryok’tel raider. It’s not your typical muzzle, like the one you’d use to train a sharp-toothed cretralth, but a custom-built one the Pryok’tel designed specifically for us drones. It’s a full metal casing that fits round our heads and tightly over our nose and mouth, preventing us from using our sharp teeth as weapons, but that’s not the worst of it.

About the Author

James and his husband live in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. Part-time office drone, part-time storyteller, full time science-fiction and fantasy aficionado, James couldn’t find enough stories involving characters who are like him and his husband: big men with big hearts! Taking matters into his own hands, James hopes to share stories where brawny blokes with hearts of gold take centre stage. Join him in his worlds and discover authentic characters, gripping scenes, lush imagination, a touch of the mushy stuff and one-of-a-kind heroes in truly daring adventures!

Connect:
Goodreads Author Page
Amazon Author Page

The post Spotlight on BARONS OF OARTHECA: The Oarthecan Star Saga, Book 2 by James Siewert appeared first on Quiet Fury Books.

New Crime Novel — CANARY IN THE COAL MINE by Charles Salzberg

PI Pete Fortunato, half-Italian, half-Jewish, who suffers from anger management issues and insomnia, wakes up one morning with a bad taste in his mouth. This is never a good sign. Working out of a friend’s downtown real estate office, Fortunato, who spent a mysteriously short, forgettable stint as a cop in a small upstate New York town, lives from paycheck to paycheck. So, when a beautiful woman wants to hire him to find her husband, he doesn’t hesitate to say yes. Within a day, Fortunato finds the husband in the apartment of his client’s young, stud lover. He’s been shot once in the head. Case closed. But when his client’s check bounces, and a couple of Albanian gangsters show up outside his building and kidnap him, hoping he’ll lead them to a large sum of money supposedly stolen by the dead man, he begins to realize there’s a good chance he’s been set up to take the fall for the murder and the theft of the money.

In an attempt to get himself out of a jam, Fortunato winds up on a wild ride that takes him down to Texas where he searches for his client’s lover who he suspects has the money and holds the key to solving the murder.

Praise for Canary In the Coal Mine:

“Salzberg has hit it out of the park. Love the writing style, and the story really draws you in. As with Salzberg’s prior works, he has a knack for making his heroes real, which makes their jeopardy real, too. So, say hello to Pete Fortunato, a modern PI who thinks on his feet and has moves that read like the noir version of Midnight Run.”
—Tom Straw, author of the Richard Castle series (from the ABC show) and Buzz Killer

“Salzberg writes hardboiled prose from a gritty stream of conscious. Peter Fortunato is an old school PI to be reckoned with.”
—Sam Wiebe, award-winning author of Invisible Dead and Never Going Back

“Charles Salzberg’s Canary in the Coal Mine is everything a reader wants in a great crime novel, and then some. The rat-a-tat cadence of the noir masters, seamlessly blended with the contemporary sensibilities of an author thoroughly in control of his craft. I liked this book so much I read it twice. No kidding. It’s that good.”
—Baron R. Birtcher, multi-award winning and Los Angeles Times bestselling author

“Charles Salzberg has created a fantastic literary PI: Pete Fortunato. Rash, blunt and prone to violence, you can’t help but turn the page to see what Fortunato will do next. Canary in the Coal Mine is great!” —James O. Born, New York Times bestselling author

Book Details:

Genre: Crime/Noir
Published by: Down & Out Books
Publication Date: April 18, 2022
Number of Pages: 276
ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-1-64396-251-1
Purchase Links: Amazon | Down & Out Books

Read an excerpt:Part OneNew York City

“Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone.”
—Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present

1

This Could Be the Start of Something Big

I wake up with a bad taste in my mouth.

It’s not the first time this has happened and it won’t be the last. I like to think of it as my personal canary in the coal mine. That taste usually means trouble on the horizon. Sometimes it’s someone else’s trouble. Sometimes it’s mine. Sometimes it’s both. Those are the times I have to watch out for.

Once I rouse myself from bed—it’s never easy when I’ve had a rough night—I launch into my usual routine. Shower, shave, brush my teeth, my pride and joy, especially the two phony teeth implanted on the upper left side replacing those knocked out in a particularly vicious fight I didn’t start, at least that’s the way I see it. The way I usually see it. It was a pickup softball game. A guy came into second hard and late and spiked my shortstop in the leg. It was bad. So bad, it took eleven stitches to close the wound. Someone had to do something and as usual I was the first one out there and the one who threw the first punch. That’s the drill for most of my fights. I never start them, well, hardly ever because being provoked doesn’t count. But when I do throw a punch I always have good reason. The fights usually end with me bloodied but unbowed. You might say I have a temper but I prefer to think of it as a short fuse and an obsession with justice. No one gets away with anything on my watch. I win a few. I lose a few. There’s always a price to pay and I always make my point. But let’s face it there are no real winners when it comes to violence. Everyone, even the winner, loses something. That’s just the way it goes.

These phony teeth of mine match the others perfectly. A dentist who owed me a favor—I provided him with all the information he needed to divorce his cheating wife and avoid being taken to the cleaners—planted them and swore no one could tell the difference. So far, he’s been right. I like to think those are the only phony things about me. Everything else, for better or worse, is me, all me. I don’t apologize for it. Take me or leave me. I don’t care.

Lately, I’ve had to curb the physical stuff. Now that I’m well into my forties, things are starting to fall apart. They say it’s the legs that go first, but in my case, it’s my shoulder. I displaced it throwing a punch at someone who deserved it, someone who’d had a little too much to drink and insulted a woman I was with. The embarrassing thing is I missed. Turns out that’s what did the damage. Missing my target. I had my arm in a sling for almost a month. It’s pretty much healed now though I sometimes feel it in damp weather. The doc warned me it could go out again any time. “Try to stay out of fights, Pete,” he said, then added, “though knowing you that’s not very likely.”

He was right. I’m combative. It’s my nature. I’ve never run away from a fight and I probably never will. If you don’t stand up for yourself, who will? I just have to be a little more careful now, which means choosing my battles more wisely.

I stop at the local diner for my usual breakfast: two cups of black coffee—neither of which take that bad taste out of my mouth—then head downtown to my office in Greenwich Village. Well, let’s be honest here. It’s not really my office. It’s the office of a friend who runs a small real estate firm here in the city. He has an extra desk he rents me for only a couple hundred bucks a month, which includes phone service and a receptionist, if you call the person who takes up space at a desk up front a receptionist. I mean, shouldn’t a receptionist be able to take a proper message? Shouldn’t they be able to direct someone to your desk, even if it’s in back, half hidden behind a pillar? But there’s a hitch—there always is. When business picks up and they have to hire another broker, it’s arrivederci, Pete. Fortunately, in the two years I’ve been here that’s only happened once, and then just for a couple months.

New York City real estate is like having a license to print money, but the competition for listings is fierce and how anyone but the crème de la crème makes a living is beyond me. But I can’t say being without an office puts much of a dent in my business, since it’s always been pretty much touch and go. Thank goodness for that bank overdraft protection thing which has kept the wolves from my door more times than I’d like to admit.

I’m a PI. I have a license that says so. I take it out and look at it every so often, just to remind myself I actually have a profession. Profession. I say the word aloud. It’s a strange word. It makes me think of the “world’s oldest.” I’ve done pretty much everything in my life except for that, though some might not make much of a distinction between what I do and what they do. They do it on their back. I do it on my feet. That’s pretty much what sets us apart. It’s like that Sinatra song. You know the one. Puppet, pauper, pirate, poet, pawn and king. Only with me substitute menial jobs like shoe salesman, night watchman, doorman—one summer the year after I graduated college—hot dog vendor, dog walker, even a short stint as a waiter. I was the world’s worst. Half my salary went for broken glassware and plates. Once, I actually had to pay for a guy’s meal out of my own pocket to keep him from ratting me out to the owner and getting me fired. Turned out it wasn’t a very good investment. The next day I got canned anyway. I also spent a short time as a cop. More on that later.

This job as a PI stuck by process of elimination. The only real talent I have for anything was as a ballplayer, and after I washed out of the game because of injuries that pretty much made it impossible to throw or swing a bat, then trashed my way through that bunch of other jobs, I realized I was suited to do little else. My new profession meets a laundry list of criteria.

I do not have to wear a suit and tie.I do not have anyone telling me what to do, where to be, and when to be there.It gives me an opportunity to use my brain, brawn (not that I’m brawny, but even now I’m still pretty solid, topping out at 170 pounds on my five-foot-ten-inch frame, but I’ve always been a physical guy willing to use what muscle I had), and ingenuity. But not too much of any of the three.It doesn’t take too much concentration since like half the population of the world, I’ve got ADHD issues. In other words, I lose interest very quickly.I make my own hours.I mind someone else’s business while I can ignore my own.The job fits my cynical, paranoid personality which makes me suspicious of everyone and supports a strong belief in Clare Boothe Luce’s claim that no good deed goes unpunished. I believe there is evil lurking in everyone’s soul, especially mine, though I do my best to fight against those darker urges. Other traits I own up to include being lazy, combative, argumentative, and stubborn. I love getting up in everyone else’s business, which gives me the perfect excuse to avoid mine.

I didn’t grow up watching cops and robber shows. My drug of choice was sports, especially baseball. I loved the game not only because I was good at it but because although it appears that for long stretches of time nothing is happening there’s always something going on. Even if it isn’t discernible to the eye. Baseball is not just a game of physical skill. It’s a game of thought, analysis, contemplation, and anticipation. Unlike other team sports, there is no time limit. It takes as long as it takes, and in this sense, it mimics life. No one knows when it’s going to end. Theoretically, a game can go on forever, ending only when one team has scored more runs than the other. It is a game of nuance. It is a game that can be won with power, or speed, or defense, or a combination of these attributes. It can be won on the mound, at the plate, or in the field. It can be won by a score of one nothing or twelve to eleven. It can end as a result of a timely hit or an untimely error. It is a game of ebb and flow. It is unpredictable. Just like life.

I’ll take a thinking player over a naturally talented one any day of the week. Baseball is a game like chess. The best ballplayers are always several steps ahead of the game. They’re thinking about what they’ll do long before they actually do it. “If it’s hit to me I’ll fake the runner back to second then go to first.” That sort of thing does not show up on the TV screen nor does it appear in the box score. But that’s what wins and loses games.

Baseball imitates life: Long stretches of nothingness, then short bursts of action, which comes as a logical conclusion of those stretches of nothingness. This is much how our lives unfold. At least it’s the way mine does.

I thought I’d make it as a major league ballplayer, but I never got the chance to prove it. I was a pretty good high school pitcher and when I wasn’t pitching, I played shortstop with middling range, a good arm, and a better than average bat, although I lacked power. I told myself I’d grow into it, though I never did. I threw the ball in the mid-eighties, not very fast by today’s standards, when young players can now flirt with a hundred on the gun. But I had a decent curve and was working on what I hoped would be a better than average changeup. I figured by the time I got to the minors I’d ramp it up, adding a few miles per hour to the fastball. I was good enough to earn a partial scholarship to a small upstate New York college.

But before I got halfway through my first college season, I developed arm trouble. In those days, more than a quarter century ago, Tommy John surgery wasn’t what it is today and it certainly wasn’t for college kids without a buck to their name. Even if I wanted it, who was going to pay for it? My father was lucky to make the rent each month and if it hadn’t been for that athletic scholarship, I would have wound up working some soul-sucking civil service job.

Once I accepted the fact I’d never pitch again, I had to shift gears, away from the idea of becoming a professional athlete. They let me keep the scholarship so long as I maintained my grade point average. I was certainly no A student, but when I put my mind to it, I can do almost anything, no matter how unlikely. I sure as hell wasn’t the best student in the world, but I wasn’t the worst either, and somehow, I made it through to graduation. The first to do so in the Fortunato line. My mother’s family was a bunch of brainiacs. She went to college and might have gone further if she hadn’t met my father. That was the first thing he screwed up in her life. It wouldn’t be the last.

I’d like to say I’m choosey about the kinds of cases I take, but that would be a lie. It’s not that I don’t lie, by the way, it’s just that I don’t lie frivolously, which makes it difficult to know whether what comes out of my mouth is the truth or a lie. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, in my business it probably qualifies as a plus.

It’s that time in New York when the city isn’t quite sure what season it wants to be. A few days before Halloween, people are already gearing up for Thanksgiving, then Christmas. Always one, sometimes two holidays ahead of itself. One day in late August, I was shocked to see plastic pumpkins lined up on display in a CVS pharmacy. As if life isn’t disorienting enough.

The weather doesn’t help. Today, when I look out my window, the sky is cloudless and that shade of deep blue so beautiful it makes you want to cry. But it’s deceiving because when I get outside the temperature is hovering in the low forties. But like the city itself, the weather can break your heart by promising something it just can’t seem to deliver. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be pushing seventy, at least that’s what the weather people are forecasting. And as if that isn’t disorienting enough, the next day it’s supposed to drop back to the fifties with overcast skies and intermittent showers. It’s that schizo time of year when you never quite know what to wear. As a result, I always seem to be dressed one or two days ahead or behind the weather.

I usually roll into my office around ten, which I think is a pretty decent time considering the erratic hours I keep. Sometimes it’s because I’m on a job, sometimes it’s because I suffer from debilitating bouts of insomnia. When that strikes either I lie in bed thinking about all the things I could have done different in my life, and there are plenty, or I get up, get dressed, and roam the streets. In this city, there’s always plenty to keep things interesting. So yeah, New York really is the city that never sleeps. At least that’s true for some of its citizens. No matter how late or early it is I’m never the only one walking the streets. But I’m probably the only one who has no idea where he’s going.

Obviously, not everyone is in agreement about arriving at a decent hour thing, because half a dozen other desks in the office are already filled with folks either working the phones or staring blankly into their computer. I park myself at my desk way in the back, near the bathroom, and as soon as I do, Philly, my friend and boss man of the real estate firm, appears in front of me.

“I wasn’t sure you were coming in today, Petey,” he cracks. He flashes a goofy grin after the words tumble out of his mouth like a waterfall. He’s a born and bred New Yorker so he talks as if he’s in a race to finish a sentence so he can move on to the next one. Sometimes, he speaks so quick the words stick to each other and he is this close to being unintelligible. Unlike others who have to ask him to slow the fuck down, I, being a born and bred New Yorker, too, can understand him without much effort.

When he speaks, he bares his teeth, which are a dull yellow and seem to be in a life-or-death struggle for room in his mouth. But his nose, well, that’s another story. Unlike mine, which has been broken too many times to count, his is straight and in perfect harmony with the rest of his face. You might suspect he’s had work done on it, but no, Philly was born this way. He is, no doubt about it, a handsome man—except for those teeth, which I keep advising him he ought to get fixed—and he knows it. He’s been married three times, each one of them a stunner, and if he ever gets divorced from his present wife, Marnie, I have no doubt there’ll be a fourth waiting in the wings. He can afford it, though.

“What are you talking about?” I say, tapping my watch for emphasis. “This is fucking early for me.”

“I’ve been here since eight, my friend. That’s early.”

“You’re not going to tell me about the damn bird, are you?”

“What bird?”

“The one who gets the worm.”

“I don’t need any bird to tell me when to get to work, Petey.”

“What can I say, Philly, other than you’re a better man than me.”

“Damn straight. You’d give everything in your bank account to change places with me, Petey, and you know it.”

“That wouldn’t be much, Philly, and you know it.”

He shrugs. “Maybe that’ll change. There was a broad in here earlier looking for you.”

“Yeah?”

“That’s right.”

“She actually asked for me?”

“Yeah. By name, not the usual ‘where’s that scumbag owes me money?’”

“What’d she look like?”

“That’s the first thing you ask?”

“I yam who I yam.”

He smiles. There are those teeth again. I want to give him the name of my dentist but I know it won’t do any good, so why bother?

“You and Popeye. She looks like you’d want to get to know her and spend a lot of time with her. If I weren’t so blissfully married, she’d be at the top of my list for number four.”

I resist asking, how long’s that gonna be for? and say instead, “That good, huh?”

“Yeah. That good.”

“I hope you didn’t try to sell her an apartment.”

“She didn’t look like she needed one.”

“Did she tell you why she wanted to see me?”

“Nope. But she did give me this.” He pulls a business card out of his pocket and tosses it on my desk. “Said you should call her. If I were you, I’d do it ASAP. She reeked of money and folks with money don’t like to be made to wait.”

I look at the card then bring it up close to my nose. It smells like lemons. The name on it is Lila Alston. I like the sound of that. And the smell of lemons. Her name reminds me of those in one of those pulp crime novels. Like Velma. Or Bubbles.

As soon as Philly dismisses himself, I dial the number. A woman’s voice answers. I take a shot.

“I believe you were looking for me, Ms. Alston.”

“If you’re Peter Fortunato that would be correct. But it’s Mrs. Not Ms. At least for the moment.”

“Then I’ll take a wild guess and say this has something to do with your husband.”

She laughs. It’s short and it’s raspy and it’s sexy. Very sexy. “That’s correct. And it appears I may have found the right man…for a change.”

“Would you like to meet in person or continue this over the phone, Lila?”

“I liked it better when you were more formal, Mr. Fortunato. At least until we get to know each other a little better.”

I can’t wait. I’m already getting the beginnings of a hard-on.

“Got it. So, phone or meet up, Mrs. Alston?” I’m hoping she’ll agree to the latter. I have to see for myself what this chick looks like because Philly is only prone to exaggeration when it comes to real estate.

“I suppose a face-to-face meeting would be more advantageous. This is a rather…odd situation and it might take some explaining.”

“I specialize in odd situations, Mrs. Alston.”

“I suspected as much.”

“By the way, how did you come to get in touch with me?”

“I went down a list of private investigators until I found a name I liked. It happened to be yours. Fortunato. It has a rather nice ring to it.”

“Yeah, just like the sound of a cash register. So, you know nothing else about me?”

“I didn’t say that, Mr. Fortunato. I didn’t say that at all.”

***

Excerpt from Canary In the Coal Mine by Charles Salzberg. Copyright 2022 by Charles Salzberg. Reproduced with permission from Charles Salzberg. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Charles Salzberg is a former magazine journalist and nonfiction book writer. His novels Swann’s Last Song (the first of the five Henry Swann novels) and Second Story Man were nominated for Shamus Awards and the latter was the winner of the Beverly Hills Book Award. Devil in the Hole was named one of the best crime novels of 2013 by Suspense Magazine. His work has also appeared in several anthologies as well as Mystery Tribune. He is a former professor of magazine at S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University, and he teaches writing in New York City. He is one of the Founding Members of New York Writers Workshop, and is a member of the Board of PrisonWrites and formerly a board member for MWA-NY.

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New Mystery Spolight — THE ORIENTATION OF DYLAN WOODGER: A Central New York Crime Story by Chiuba Obele

Solving mysteries is never easy. Dealing with an infuriated mob boss and acute amnesia only makes it worse.

Dylan Woodger is a college student who is captured and tortured by the mafia. After amnesia obscures the last three years of his life, Dylan learns that he has stolen three million dollars from a ruthless mafia boss. When, how, and why – he doesn’t remember. But someone betrayed him and gave him a drug that erased his memory. He was then given over to be tortured.

Determined to recover his memory, Dylan begins delving into the events of the past. As he struggles to put the pieces of his past back together, Dylan finds himself wrapped up in a path of vengeance made even more perilous by the presence of assassins, gangsters, and detectives. But as each new piece of the puzzle falls into place, Dylan realizes that no one is who they seem, especially himself. He now has links to rapists, white supremacists, and murders. People who claim to be his friends are hiding secrets from him. And his girlfriend is beautiful, but that’s all he knows about her. Who are these people? And who is Dylan? Even he doesn’t know!

The Orientation of Dylan Woodger is the story of a young man who is torn between his capacity to do evil and his desire to do what’s right. This book explores racism and feminism, and addresses controversial topics such as male rape, hate crimes, and misogyny toward women. The characters are disturbing, but the book aspires to be hopeful, as these characters ultimately succeed in finding some measure of humanity.

There are so many unanswered questions . . . But first, Dylan must survive the torture.

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery
Published by: Fischer House Publications
Publication Date: April 19, 2022
Number of Pages: 377
ISBN: 9798985146400
Purchase Links: Amazon | Goodreads

Read an excerpt:CHAPTER 3

WHO WAS I? Dylan J. Woodger

Where was I? I wasn’t sure.
What time was it? I had no clue.
Why was I here? I didn’t know

What I did know, was that it was fucking cold. I could feel undergrowth beneath me. My eyes darted around. There were trees as far as the eye could see. I had a raging headache. I couldn’t move my hands or feet. I looked down at my prone body and saw rope wrapped tightly around my ankles. I couldn’t move my hands — they were tied behind my back. My wrists hurt, and whatever bound them also cut into my arms. I had a pain in my shoulder. It hurt bad. But it was nothing compared to the pain that I would suffer once I fell into the hands of the Utica Mafia.

But we’re not there yet.

In my mind, it was yesterday that my mother dropped me off at Hamilton College. I went to sleep, then woke up in the woods. It was warm and sunny when Mom left me. But now, I woke up in the freezing cold. I thought it was August and I couldn’t figure out how it could get so cold. And why was I tied up? And could the pain in my shoulder be…a bullet wound? But how could it be a bullet wound? I’d never been shot at!

I knew I had to get outta there, or else I’d freeze to death. Most people aren’t experts in rope tying. Usually, the average person without formal training doesn’t know how to do a good job. And this rope tying definitely wasn’t the work of a professional. So I felt confident I could escape. I managed to free my arms with some wriggling though it took more skin off my wrists. Then I focused on freeing my legs. I kicked off my shoes and pulled my feet out of the rope. Once my feet were free, I used my hands to pull the leg bonds down. I was now free, but still clueless. Who had done this to me? One thing I knew for sure: this was the work of an amateur who didn’t know how to properly tie someone up.

Oh, and I noticed something strange about myself. I grew facial hair and had put on some muscle. But when did that happen? I hadn’t looked in a mirror, but I doubted I was the same baby-faced boy my mom had dropped off that morning.

Just then, I heard a group of men shouting out of sync. “Hello, is anybody here? Hello?”

I felt relieved. Did the police send out a search party for me?

I was eager to get out of the cold, and my first instinct was to shout, “Over here!”

That was my first mistake.

As the men approached, their boots crunching on twigs and fallen branches, I rushed over to them. I kept my left arm still — the pain of

moving it alone caused my vision to flash white and my ears to ring. I stumbled a bit, but soon I could see them clear enough. The men wore plain clothes, just any random winter jacket and jeans someone might get at the nearest Walmart. They weren’t uniformed as you would normally expect police to be.

“Thank goodness you’re here. I thought I would freeze to death.”

The men looked at each other in confusion, until one of them finally said, “Are you here with anyone?”

“No,” I replied. “I found myself tied up and managed to escape, just before you got here.”

“This guy is lying to us,” one of them said. “This must be an ambush.”

“An ambush? What are you talking about?” I struggled to keep my voice even. “I just woke up, and I haven’t seen another person until you guys showed up. I’m glad you got here, though. Can you please take me home?”

Just at that moment, one of the men pulled out a gun and pointed it at me. My hands flew out in front of me, and my blood ran cold when I saw the barrel. “Wait, hold on! What are you doing?”

“You better tell us right now. Is this an ambush? ’Cause if bullets start flying, you’ll be the first one to die.”

“No, sir. I promise, this isn’t an ambush.”

“So where’s our money?” he demanded.

I was confused. Then I thought I had pieced it together. “Yeah, okay. You guys obviously want money for going through the trouble of finding me. That’s fair. My mother’s pretty well off, and she probably offered a reward to find me. I’ll make sure you get it. That’s how these things work, right? So can you please take me home now?”

The man kept the gun pointed at me. I heard a click and knew he had cocked it. I realized then, that this was no ordinary search party.

“What’s going on here?” I asked, with fear creeping in.

The man with the gun shouted at me. “Stop playing games and tell us where our money is!”

I furrowed my eyebrows at him. He was an olive-skinned man. I pegged his age at around forty. He was bigger than average with shaggy black hair and unkempt facial hair.

“You’ve got me confused with someone else,” I said. “I don’t have anybody’s money.”

“Nice try, kid, but I’m not a babbeo. Whatever tricks you’re trying to pull, they won’t work. Stop acting like we’re suckers and tell us where our money is! I’m not gonna ask you again.”

Babbeo? I wondered. What language is that? Could it be Italian?

“Look, I already told you that if you take me home, my mom will be glad to help you with some money. Now can we please—”

Before I could finish speaking, the man with the gun slapped me with it. I grabbed my jaw and fell backward. My head exploded with pain.

One of the men said, “Shit, Tony. This guy is useless. Let’s finish him off and get outta here.”

Another man replied, “Wait, Tony. The boss sent us to collect the money. We can’t kill him. We have to make this kid talk.”

“All right,” Tony said. “Let’s take him back to the warehouse. And then we can really start having fun.”

I knew what he meant by “fun.” They were going to torture me. “Help!” I screamed. “Somebody help me!”

A loud bang rang out. Before my ears could even begin ringing, the bullet ripped into my thigh, stopping like red hot steel somewhere inside of me. My vision flashed white, and I fell to the ground. Pain pulsed out from the wound. I wasn’t aware of myself at that moment. Maybe I cried out, or maybe it was more of a scream. What I knew, though, was that Tony had shot me in the leg.

“Shut the fuck up!” he said, waving the gun around. “I better not hear one more word outta you, or the next bullet is going straight through your head. Don’t test me!”

The men grabbed the ropes I had untied and started binding me. All the while, I felt my pants getting soaked with warm blood. My temples pounded with my racing heart as I begged for my life. “Please, you have

to believe me. I haven’t taken anyone’s money!”

One of the men said, “Well, if you didn’t rob us, then explain how you got that bullet wound in your shoulder. Huh?”

The men paused and waited for me to answer. For a moment, I forgot about the pain in my leg. I looked over my shoulder, and I could see someone had bandaged me up.

“I don’t know where I got this from,” I said.

“Don’t lie! I specifically remember shooting someone in the shoulder when the guys who robbed us were running away. You mean to tell me that’s a coincidence?”

“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please let me go.”

Tony went into a rage and began kicking me relentlessly in the gut. I tried to curl into a ball to protect my stomach which was near impossible thanks to the rope bonds. “Stop pretending to be dumb!” he said. “You’re getting on my fucking nerves!”

“Tony, relax!” one of the men said. “Remember, we gotta keep this guy alive until we know where our money is.”

The men gagged my mouth with a dry kitchen cloth and carried me into their van. Then the van drove off. The windows were tinted black. I tried kicking. I tried screaming. But none of it worked. After they placed me into the van, one of the men pulled a bag over my head. I couldn’t see a thing, but I could still hear them speak. One of them sounded like Tony—a baritone smoker. He was apparently speaking on the phone.

“Yeah, Vinny,” he said. “Tell the boss we found someone…I don’t know who it is…I already told you, I don’t know who he is! It’s just some kid who’s putting on an act.”

I heard Vinny shouting on the other end of the call. “You didn’t even ask him his for fucking name, Tony?”

Tony jerked the bag off my head and yanked the gag from my mouth. “What’s your name, kid?” he asked.

I scrambled for a plan. Should I give him a fake name? What if they catch me in a lie? That wouldn’t be so smart. I thought about whether I should cooperate. Then I simply said, “I’m not saying a damn word.”

At that point, Tony pulled a knife from his pocket and repeatedly stabbed my leg wound. White-hot pain seared through my mind. I nearly passed out from the pain and the sight of blood pouring out of me.

“Stop! Please, stop!” I cried out.

One of the men said, “You could make this a lot easier, kid, if you just tell us your name.”

“Dylan!” I screamed. “My name is Dylan!” “Dylan who?” Tony asked.

“Dylan J. Woodger!”

The pain in my leg was so bad I could barely breathe. I trembled uncontrollably. Soon, I felt lightheaded. “Can you please wrap my leg?” I

begged. “I’m bleeding badly. And I—”

Before I could finish speaking, Tony gagged me again and pulled the bag over my head. He continued talking on the phone.

“Okay, Vinny. He said his name is Dylan…Dylan Woodger…Yeah, we’re on our way to the warehouse, and—”

At that moment, I heard the shriek of a police siren. “Shit!” the driver muttered.

“What is it?” Tony asked

“It’s a cop! We’re being pulled over.”

A wave of obscenities reverberated throughout the van. “Everyone, calm the fuck down!” Tony yelled.

I felt something hard being shoved against my crotch. It was the familiar feel of a gun.

“You better not say a word, kid,” Tony said, “or I’ll shoot you in the balls.”

The van halted abruptly. A minute passed. I heard footsteps outside on the road, the glide of shoes on gravel.

“Hello, Officer,” the driver said calmly, “What seems to be the problem?”

“License and registration,” said the cop.

“Sure. Not a problem.” The driver gave the cop his license and registration.

“Do you know why you’re being stopped?” “Was I speeding?”

“No. Your van has tinted windows. Tinted windows are illegal in the state of New York.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know that,” the driver said. “I just bought this vehicle last week, and the car dealer failed to mention that. I’ll be sure to get the windows changed.” The driver laughed nervously. “So, I guess I’ll take that ticket and be on my way.”

“Not so fast,” the cop said. “I still have a couple of questions to ask you…Where are you coming from?”

“Oh umm…We’re just a few fellas going out hunting in the woods.

We just got finished not too long ago, and now we’re heading home.” “And where’s home?” the officer asked.

“Utica, sir.”

“Well, you’re only allowed to hunt animals between November first and December twentieth. Hunting season ended last week.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

“I’d like to check your vehicle.”

“Sure Officer. Go right ahead. I’ll unlock it for you.”

When I heard the rear door unlock, I nearly let out a cheer. It was as if the officer could hear my heart pounding its way through my chest. But as soon as I heard the rear door of the van creak open, a barrage of bullets tore open the air. I heard a body drop to the ground.

One of the men inside the van hissed, “Shit, he’s still moving. He’s probably got a vest on.”

Another man said, “I’ll go finish him off.”

“No! Hold on.” Tony stopped him. He pulled the bag off my head and said to me, “I want you to see what happens to those who get in our way.”

Tony stepped out of the van. Through the open door, I could see the officer on the ground, writhing in pain and begging for his life. “Please,” he said, “Don’t do this…I have three kids and a wife.”

At that point, Tony fired two gunshots straight into the officer’s head. Blood splattered onto the pavement. Tony got back into the van and said to me, “I wanted you to see that, so you know we’re capable of killing anyone. If you fuck with us, you’ll end up joining this guy here.”

***

Excerpt from The Orientation of Dylan Woodger by Chiuba E Obele. Copyright 2022 by Chiuba E Obele. Reproduced with permission from Chiuba E Obele. All rights reserved.

Interview with Author Chiuba Obele

What was the inspiration behind this story?

The Orientation of Dylan Woodger: A Central New York Crime Story depicts a college student with amnesia on a quest to uncover his true identity after he is tortured by the Italian mafia for stealing millions of dollars that he can’t remember. When Boston-native Dylan J. Woodger finds himself being questioned by the Italian mafia in 2019, the last thing he remembers is being dropped off by his mother at Hamilton College outside of Utica, New York, in 2016. Apparently, he’s stolen three million dollars but has no memory of how, why, or when, after being given an amnesia-inducing experimental drug. With no explanation to give on how he stole the money and where he took it, Dylan is subjected to torture and rape, but he avoids being murdered by promising to find the missing money. He also wants retribution for himself; apparently, his unknown accomplices betrayed him, gave him a drug that erased his memory, and then ratted him out to the mafia. Now he wants revenge. But when he returns to Hamilton, Dylan has no choice but to attempt to piece together the puzzle his life has become. Ultimately, he discovers that nothing at Hamilton College or in Utica is what it seems.

My novel takes place in 2019 at Hamilton College, where I went to school between 2009 and 2013. The central protagonist, Dylan Woodger, is named after one of my closest college friends, Woodger “Woody” Faugus. But what ultimately inspired my novel was a dream I experienced while asleep. I dreamt I was back in Hamilton College being tortured by the Utica mafia for stealing millions of dollars that I couldn’t remember, because of amnesia. That vision I experienced eventually became the plot of my novel.

Tell us about your main character.

Dylan Woodger is a college student with amnesia involved in stealing three million dollars from the Utica mafia. When Dylan’s memory resurfaces, devastating secrets come to light, bringing chaos not only in Dylan’s life but also those around him. Dylan is the classic anti-hero: he is sensitive, smart, courageous, and highly resourceful. Everything he does is on the shady side, but readers will find it impossible not to root for him.

How did you come up with the title?

The title of my novel, “The Orientation of Dylan Woodger,” has three layers of meaning.

College Orientation: The novel begins with Dylan’s mother driving him to his first day of freshman orientation. While driving, Dylan and his mother engage in a conversation about freshman orientation, and the importance of befriending other students during orientation and the first year of college.

The act or process of orienting: After arriving on campus, Dylan goes to sleep and then wakes up, three years later, in the woods, tied up, with a gunshot wound in his shoulder. It gets worse. Members of the Italian mafia grab him and demand their stolen three million dollars. Dylan doesn’t remember stealing anything or really any part of his life from the last three years. He insists he doesn’t have their money. While all this is unfolding, Dylan, as a first-person narrator, asks the readers four questions: “Who am I?”, “Where am I?”, “What time is it?”, “Why am I here?” These four questions help frame the narrative for the book’s early chapters; and they also happen to form the basis of COA x4: conscious, alert and oriented to person, place, time and event. Social workers in the mental health field are trained to assess a patient’s level of consciousness, alertness and orientation by asking four basic questions: whether the patient knows his or her name, the location and time, as well as why they are currently being treated. This practice came up during my research, and I thought it would be interesting to tie it into my book. The title is influenced by this mental health practice.

One’s true position with respect to attitudes, judgments, and beliefs: In the Britannica Dictionary, the word “orientation,” refers to a person’s feelings, interests, and beliefs. My novel is meant to be a character study. It’s about Dylan and his compulsions, judgements, beliefs, and attitudes as a person. Hence, the title of the book.

Were you surprised by the behavior of any of your characters or the direction of your plot at any point while writing?

My book explores racism and feminism, and addresses controversial topics such as male rape, hate crimes, and misogyny toward women. When I originally set out to write the novel, I didn’t expect to include so much social commentary. But once I decided to tackle racism, sexual assault, and misogyny as specific plot points, social issues became a natural outgrowth of the story.

Of all the books out there, why should readers choose this one?

The Orientation of Dylan Woodger is a crime fiction novel that explores social issues. This sets it apart from more traditional mystery novels. For instance, the protagonist, Dylan Woodger, is a college student who becomes a victim of male rape. Dylan is transformed by this deeply traumatic experience, and it draws him closer to women who have suffered similar pain. 

There are other reasons why readers should purchase my book. For instance, I am pledging a percentage of my royalties to charity. Twenty-five percent of my earnings from this book will be donated to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, otherwise known as RAINN. RAINN is the largest anti-sexual violence organization in the United States. Eighty-eight percent of every dollar donated to RAINN goes directly to programs that support survivors and help prevent sexual violence.

If your book were made into a movie, who would you like to play the lead characters?

My protagonist, Dylan Woodger, is a male rape survivor who also happens to be a tough guy. His character requires a leading actor who embodies traditional masculine stereotypes while also managing to showcase emotional vulnerability. For that reason, I think Timothée Chalamet would shine in this role.

About the Author

CHIUBA EUGENE OBELE is a poet, writer, and author of The Orientation of Dylan Woodger: A Central New York Crime Story. He can usually be found reading a book, and that book will more likely than not be a crime fiction novel. Chiuba lives and works out of his home in Boston, Massachusetts. When not absorbed in the latest page-turner, Chiuba enjoys spending his summers vacationing with his parents, siblings, and nieces and nephews.

Catch Up With Chiuba E Obele:
ChiubaObele.com
Goodreads
Twitter – @ChiubaE
Facebook – @chiubaobele7

 

 

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The post New Mystery Spolight — THE ORIENTATION OF DYLAN WOODGER: A Central New York Crime Story by Chiuba Obele appeared first on Quiet Fury Books.

Book Review — GIRLS OF FLIGHT CITY by Lorraine Heath

Inspired by true events, a breathtaking WWII historical novel about the brave American women who trained the British Royal Air Force, by New York Times bestselling author Lorraine Heath.

1941. A talented flier, Jessie Lovelace yearns for a career in aviation. When the civilian flight school in her small Texas town begins to clandestinely train British pilots for the RAF, she fights to become an instructor. But the task isn’t without its perils of near-misses and death. Faced with the weight of her responsibilities, she finds solace with a British officer who knows firsthand the heavy price paid in war . . . until he returns to the battles he never truly left behind.

Rhonda Monroe might not be skilled in the air but can give a trainee a wild ride in a flight simulator. Fearing little, she dares to jeopardize everything for a forbidden relationship with a charismatic airman…

Innocent and fun-loving Kitty Lovelace, Jessie’s younger sister, adores dancing with these charming newcomers, realizing too late the risks they pose to her heart.

As the war intensifies and America becomes involved, the Girls of Flight City do their part to bring a victorious end to the conflict, pouring all their energy into preparing the young cadets to take to the skies and defeat the dangers that await. And lives from both sides of the Atlantic will be forever changed by love and loss…

Published: April 5, 2022

Amazon | Goodreads

My Thoughts

Girls of Flight City takes us to Texas, just prior to the U.S. entering WWII, where we see a small civilian flight school transformed by the military to train British Royal Air Force pilots. There we meet Jessie, a young woman fighting for her right to work as an instructor.

Because this is based on true events, I was especially intrigued by the women’s joy of flying and their persistence in working in a male-dominated field.

This is much more of a love story than I’d expected, with the backdrop of war and the heartache of loss.

I didn’t connect with the emotional aspects of the writing as much as I’d have liked, but I still enjoyed the story.

*I received a free copy from Bibliolifestyle and William Morrow Books.*

The post Book Review — GIRLS OF FLIGHT CITY by Lorraine Heath appeared first on Quiet Fury Books.