Kenneth Atchity's Blog, page 138

Miki's Hope Reviews Ian Bull's Six Passengers, Five Parachutes

SIX PASSENGERS, FIVE PARACHUTES is the sequel to THE PICTURE KILLS, (read my review here) but you can read the series in any order.

This one will definitely keep you on your toes wondering how it will all turn out. The premise is mind boggling and I sincerely hope this never really happens! What Stephen goes through--he is determined to thwart this TV series--will make you wonder if he will make it out alive. Julie does all in her power to try and stop him. The FBI has nothing on her!! She gets what she wants when she wants it. All except for stopping Stephan. Since she can't stop him-she is determined to at least keep him alive.

The ending is filled with twists and turns. I can't say much else without giving it all away. I did enjoy this book and look forward to the third in the series!!


About the Book: (from Amazon)

Six Passengers, Five Parachutes (A Hollywood Thriller—Book 2 of The Quintana Adventures)

It's a race from Los Angeles to San Francisco to Hong Kong to Mexico, culminating on a plane flying over the Pacific Ocean. Army Ranger reconnaissance photographer Stephen Quintana is tracking an international group of investors who create illegal high-end movies of their darkest murder fantasies. They’re the same men who funded the kidnapping and on camera attempted murder of movie star Julia Travers. Luckily for Julia, Stephen made sure he was there to save her before they succeeded.

Now Stephen has uncovered the group's latest underground project: forcing convicted killers to fight to the death for the audience of high-rollers paying big bucks to gamble on the outcome.

But before Stephen can uncover their identities, they shoot him and leave him to die—or so they think. Stephen survives, and now he's even more obsessed with exposing the group. And being “dead” is the perfect cover for digging deeper and infiltrating the show.

The only person who knows everything is Julia Travers. She’ll do anything to keep Stephen safe, even if that means sabotaging his undercover investigation. In the second book of the Quintana Adventures, Stephen suffers deception, betrayal, and brutal attacks but never wavers in his determination to expose the most insane reality show ever created.


READ A CHAPTER OR TWO HERE


Interview with the Author: 
Q – Why are you writing The Quintana Adventures?
A – I write what I love to read – page-turners that I can’t put down. I like thrilling stories with a dynamite premise, great characters, and an action-packed rollercoaster plot that keeps you on the edge of your seat. I also love stories with two protagonists, a man and a woman, who must work together to overcome obstacles. I also love international stories that transport the reader to amazing places around the world. The Quintana Adventures is my way of putting all of that into one series. Steven Quintana is a kick-ass Army Ranger Reconnaissance Photographer. Julia Travers is a beautiful, talented movie star with a razor wit and a quick mind. They couldn’t be more different. I then toss them into wild situations where they encounter crazy characters, and they must work together to survive. It also makes for a rocky relationship.

Q – Why the Hollywood angle?
A – Because I know it. My career has been a healthy mix of success and struggle, and I have worked with the famous, the infamous, and the bottom-feeders. My mental filing cabinet is full of experiences that I use to write my stories.

Q – Why the California angle?
A – California has everything – the ocean, beaches, mountains, deserts, farmland, small towns and vibrant cities. Families that have been here for generations live alongside immigrants from around the world. I’ve lived in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and in the smaller towns of Cazadero and Lemoore. I’ve worked with rice farmers in Butte County, marijuana growers in Mendocino County, and Navy families in Kings County. I want to put all of this into my books.

About the Author:

Ian Bull’s books are action-packed thrillers that start in Hollywood, spread across California and careen around the globe.

Ian Bull is the pen name of Donald Ian Bull, and he brings twenty-five years in Hollywood and a lifetime in California to his writing.

He is the author of the Quintana Adventures, a series featuring the exploits of Army Reconnaissance photographer Steven Quintana and movie star Julia Travers, and their rocky relationship.

The Picture Kills is the first book, and Six Passengers, Five Parachutes is the sequel. The third book, Danger Room, will be released in 2018.

He is also the author of Liars in Love, a romantic crime thriller set in 1980s San Francisco and RoadKill, a noir thriller about a filmmaker who learns the hard way about how TV gets made.

He also writes a blog called CaliforniaBull (at CaliforniaBull.com), about life in California, and he has written a book of essays, Water Markers, about swimming.

His family is originally from Ontario, Canada. He grew up in San Francisco, graduated from UC Berkeley and UCLA, and now lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.

You can check out his work at IanBullAuthor.com, IntersectionProductions.com and CaliforniaBull.com.

He also gives kudos to his editors and publishers, Lisa Cerasoli and Ken Atchity of Story Merchant.

He grew up in San Francisco, attended UC Berkeley and then UCLA, and now lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.
Read more 

Story Merchant Books June Amazon eBook Deals

FREE  June 1 - June 5


The Fat Death by Michael Avallone (Ed Noon Mystery)

Ed Noon finds that high fashion and murder mixed with low-down sex can be murder a la mod.

“Beware the Fat Death” reads the thousands of leaflets fluttering down from the sky over Manhattan. A thin man, giant freak, who calls himself the Slim Savior, has begun a huge campaign because he has some idea about making America diet conscious, but nothing that innocent is the byplay that ensues from his doctrine.

www.amzn.com/B00FEPRPWM




FREE June 5 - June 9


Fossil River by Jock Miller

This pedal-to-the-metal speculative thriller revolves around the discovery of a highly territorial colony of predatory dinosaurs in Alaska that has survived undetected for millions of years. ~ Kirkus Review
 
www.amzn.com/B0085DCRLO






 FREE June 6 -June 10

Homer's Iliad: The Shield of Memory
by Kenneth Atchity​

This book presents a refreshingly original interpretation of Homer's Iliad, inviting today's reader to rediscover the beauty, intelligence, and power of Western civilization's greatest epic poem.

"I know of no other book as good."--John Gardner

 www.amzn.com/B00LDXTYD2





FREE June 8 - June 12!


Tony Molina's South Texas Drag


Take a trip through the South Texas terrain through the eyes of drug runner.

Toño Garcia. His distinctive South Texas slang adds a unique charm to this dark story, but the appeal and originality doesn’t stop there. This guy knows more about style than Carrie Bradshaw, which adds massive flavor and a whole new twist to a tale about “crime as a way of life” in South Texas.

www.amzn.com/B01M055JLA



FREE June 15 – June 19 Yes, Mr. DeMille by Phil A. Koury
At the right hand of a Hollywood God.
Phil Koury was Cecil B. DeMille's attorney, and stood close as DeMille made some of the most successful movies of his time. This is a first-hand account of the ups and downs of one of our most controversial Hollywood legends. Not to be missed if you love learning about the mechanics and foibles of the film business.
www.amzn.com/B00VITG5QU



FREE June 22 - June 26Project Nephili by T.L. Farmer
Combines elements of the creation mythologies of ancient cultures into a thriller that takes you from a secret hidden in the dust of a late Stone Age dig to the slave trade of West Africa, to current day Georgia.
www.amzn.com/B00LR65KDS







FREE June 29 - July 2

Milton E. Lyles' The Cruelest Lie

The story centers around the deaths of three young men and the small town corruption and avarice that threatens to destroy an innocent boy setting in motion a deadly struggle between integrity and iniquity, truth and deceit.

 
www.amzn.com/B008PYCM7M

Memorial Day: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935)

Massachusetts supplied almost 150,000 troops to the Union Army during the Civil War. 

One of the state’s most honored regiments, the 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, fought in nearly every major campaign, including Ball’s Bluff in 1861, Antietam and Fredericksburg in 1862, Gettysburg in 1863, and the Battle of the Wilderness campaign in 1864.

The regiment’s valor came at great cost: of the two thousand active Union regiments, the 20th Massachusetts ranked fifth in casualties. While still in college, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., son of the prominent writer and physician Oliver Wendell Holmes, joined the 20th Massachusetts and served for three years before injuries forced him to leave the army.


In a stirring Memorial Day address to fellow veterans in 1884, Holmes attributed great value to his experience in the Civil War. This speech contains one of Holmes’ most enduring lines: 

“Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire.”

When Holmes was laid to rest in 1935 in Arlington National Cemetery, infantrymen raised their rifles and fired three volleys, one for each of the battles in which Holmes was wounded.


Read more

"Selling Your Story to Hollywood: A Conversation with a Movie Producer" Audio Replay

“Selling Your Story to Hollywood: A Conversation with a Movie Producer” Audio Replay 
I've had such a great response to my interview with Build Book Buzz's Sandra Beckwith on how to sell your story to Hollywood teleseminar that I'm sharing the replay link for those of you who missed it or want to revisit it.
 
Here’s the audio recording for “Selling Your Story to Hollywood: A Conversation with a Movie Producer". 

 
  Click here for the audio REPLAY to Listen to Your Recording
Prefer to Download the Audio? Click Here to Download Your Recording
(If the recording opens in a new tab in your browser instead of downloading, simply right-click the link above and choose “Save File As” or “Save Target As” and choose your preferred save location.)

We hope you enjoy the recorded conversation about the book-to-movie process. Feel free to share this link with authors who want to know more about how to sell their stories to Hollywood.

Talk about a high-concept ... Rihanna and Lupita Nyong’o are set to star in a buddy movie for director Ava DuVernay after a tweet of the two went viral.

The Pitch: “Rihanna looks like she scams rich white men and lupita is the computer smart best friend that helps plan the scams.”



The Grammy-winning singer and Oscar-nominated actor were pictured together at a Miu Miu fashion show in 2014, which was then used as part of a meme movie pitch on Twitter in April.

Both stars then expressed interest in the idea via Twitter, followed by Selma director DeVernay and Insecure writer Issa Rae.

Nyong’o acknowledged the tweet about the potential film, writing, “I’m down if you are @rihanna.” Rihanna responded, “I'm in Pit’z.” After that, it was suggested that Ava DuVernay (Selma, 13th) and “Insecure” creator/star Issa Rae get involved. Both showed interest.

Now, the Rihanna and Lupita Nyong’o buddy film could soon become a reality. Netflix reportedly bought the rights to the movie during a bidding war at Cannes.

R.I.P. Roger Moore

Truly wonderful Roger story from Marc Haynes

Women in Hollywood The more you know ...

Sometimes when you’re having a conversation — let’s say about how women are treated in Hollywood — it can be hard to come up with anything but generalizations. Even though it’s completely accurate to say, “Women TV characters are usually white,” or, “Female directors aren’t getting the same opportunities as men,” sometimes you need a number to really drive your point home.

Below is a Women and Hollywood-created infographic that provides the need-to-know facts about women in the entertainment industry in 2017. After compiling data from academics and researchers, Women in Hollywood.com put together an on-the-go reference about women onscreen and off, from the big screen to television. We hope it’s helpful.

Guest Post: Reading is bad for your eyes but... by Jerry Amernic

When Jean Chretien was Prime Minister of Canada he once said something about the country’s founding in 1864, but Canada became a country in 1867. Every Canadian knows that. Right? Well, apparently not. By the same token U.S. President Donald Trump isn’t exactly up on American history.

His interview the other day with The Washington Post revealed that he doesn’t know why the Civil War took place and that Andrew Jackson was “really angry” about it. This is quite a stretch when you consider that Jackson died in 1845 and the Civil War began in 1861.

One week earlier Trump was interviewed by Reuters. In that one, he wondered why the Israelis and Palestinians have been fighting all these years.

“There is no reason there’s not peace between Israel and the Palestinians – none whatsoever,” he said.

Uh-huh.

Isn’t it important for world leaders to know a thing or two about history? One would think it should be a prerequisite for office. How can a world leader make informed decisions if he or she doesn’t know anything about the past?

Welcome to the brave new world of the 21st century. It’s a world where we have more information at our fingertips than ever before and people seem to know less than ever. Why? Here are a few reasons.

1.    The education system is sadly lacking (I’m being generous when I say this).

2.    There is so much choice out there, in terms of what information we want and how we get it, that many take the easy route. Put another way, in the old days you went to the library, but now you go to Wikipedia.

3.    Extension of point no. 2 – There is so much choice and so little time that people, by and large, no longer read anything of substance.

A 1968 film called Charly with Cliff Robertson was about a man who is intellectually slow and who undergoes a medical procedure that makes him a genius. He is asked what was raising the standard of living (this was 1968) and he said: “A TV in every room.” Then he is asked about the current state of education and he said: “A TV in every room.”

Which is kind of where we are today, only worse. For the record, here are a few items from my bookshelf that I recommend to young people and current world leaders.

•    The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer
•    Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
•    Roots by Alex Haley
•    The Source by James A. Michener (a novel)
•    Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden (another novel).

It’s only a beginning. But it’s something.



Jerry Amernic is a Canadian writer of fiction and non-fiction books. He is the author of the  Holocaust-related novel 'The Last Witness' and the biblical-historical thriller 'QUMRAN'

THE MUSIC MAN Turning children on to classical music

 The Dr. Fuddle Music Scholarship has been officially established! This is the first step in moving forward with the goal of establishing tuition-free conservatories of music worldwide and The Dr. Fuddle Foundation for the Arts. Dr. Warren Woodruff aka Dr. Fuddle shares his joy of classical music with children through scholarships and books.

Pianist, musicologist and author Dr. Warren Woodruff of Buckhead is a man on a mission: to instill a new generation with a love of classical music. A teacher for the last 30 years, he spreads his message wherever he goes and volunteers to help students with extraordinary talent.

In 2016, Woodruff endowed The Dr. Fuddle Music Scholarship to the Atlanta Music Club. The award was named after the hero of his children’s novels. Woodruff was instrumental in raising funds to develop a music therapy program at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA), as well as helping the hospital’s Tower of Talent event raise more than $1 million.

“I’ve seen firsthand how transformative and healing classical music can be,” Woodruff says. “It gives children joy and carries them through tough times. The power of music is the most untapped resource on the planet.”

The Magic Piano, a play written by Woodruff, debuted in Atlanta in 1999 and was so well received that he expanded it into a fantasy novel and screenplay titled Dr. Fuddle and the Gold Baton. A sequel to the book, a feature film and toys will debut this year.

“In the story, children go to a magical land where the great composers live and learn how to solve real world problems through music and nonviolence,” Woodruff says. 





Read more

For more information, visit drfuddle.com.

BY: Mickey Goodman
Photo: Tim Wilkerson Photography

Great News for Indie Producers! Amazon Studios is bringing three award-winning indie production companies into the fold.

The company has signed exclusive first-look deals with Bona Fide Productions, Killer Films and Le Grisbi Productions, Variety has learned. The pacts put the streaming giant in business with the makers of such film classics as “Birdman” and “Far From Heaven.”  They come just two weeks before the Cannes Film Festival where Amazon will be on hand to premiere Todd Haynes’ “Wonderstruck,” which Killer Films produced, and Lynne Ramsay’s “You Were Never Really Here.”

Bona Fide Productions is backed by Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa. The company is working with Amazon on Marc Webb’s “The Only Living Boy in New York,” a drama with Jeff Bridges, Callum Turner and Kate Beckinsale. Its credits include “Little Miss Sunshine” and “Nebraska.”

Related
Amazon Studios Variety Cover Story

Amazon, Retail Behemoth, Taking Smaller Steps Into Hollywood

Killer Films is the label of veteran producers Christine Vachon (pictured) and Pamela Koffler. In addition to “Wonderstruck,” which stars Julianne Moore, the company has produced “Still Alice,” “Carol,” and “Wiener-Dog” (an Amazon acquisition out of 2016’s Sundance Film Festival). The company also produced “Z: The Beginning of Everything,” a biography series about Zelda Fitzgerald, for Amazon’s original series arm.

Bona Fide Productions will have a first look deal and Killer Films will have an exclusive first-look deal in both film and television for two years.

Le Grisbi Productions is the shingle of John Lesher. Its credits include “Fury,” “Black Mass,” and “Birdman.” Upcoming releases include Scott Cooper’s “Hostiles,” a Western with Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike, and “White Boy Rick,” a crime drama with Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Jason Leigh. The company will have an exclusive first-look deal for any “indie-sized” films it is making. The pact runs for two years.

Amazon has only been releasing movies theatrically for a little over a year, but it’s already made a splash, picking up three Oscars this year for “Manchester by the Sea” and “The Salesman,” as well as releasing movies from the likes of Woody Allen and Spike Lee. The deals are a sign that Amazon is increasingly interested in getting involved in films from their inception as opposed to simply acquiring completed films on the festival circuit. It’s also a signal of the company’s big ambitions. Like major studios, which routinely hand out production deals, it wants to forge enduring business relationships with top talent.

“Bona Fide Productions, Killer Films and Le Grisbi Productions each have a long history of making critically acclaimed and award-winning films with accomplished filmmakers,” said Roy Price, head of Amazon Studios in a statement. “We’re proud to be working with each of them and excited about our future creative collaborations.”

Read more