Malpractice! The Novel by William Louis Harvey @sexandlawnovel #AmReading #Legal #Fiction

Despite Paul’s sexual frustration, his high-school years passed relatively happily, as they did for most of the boys in town. Paul gradually discovered his own talents and peculiarities. He had dates with many of the girls in his class, as well as with girls from lower and higher classes. Most dates were chaste, ending with a light kiss at the girl’s door. Girls (and their parents) felt safe with him because he dressed well, was polite and articulate, and never bragged to his friends about how far he got on a date.

In the later years of high school, he began to make a little sexual progress. He learned to tell which girls were interested in going a little further. This started with the French kiss, which was initiated by him and eventually became mutual. When that began to seem dull, Paul found a girl in his class who had a plain face but a well-developed figure; she enjoyed him putting his hands on her breasts, outside her sweater or shirt, and caressing her breasts and nipples. However, although she moaned with pleasure, his attempt to get his hand under her sweater was stopped cold. After several dates with similar results, forcing him to masturbate in the bathroom when he got home, he gave up and moved on, earning nasty looks from her during the next few months. (pp 21-22) Malpractice! the Novel

Malpractice! the Novel is an electrifying work of realistic fiction written by an anonymous insider who worked the frontlines of the clash between the medical and legal professions during the California medical malpractice insurance crisis, which began in the 1960s. William Louis Harvey, a nom de plume, takes readers on a steamy adventure involving power, sex, lies and money in this candid courtroom suspense thriller. While Malpractice! The Novel, is a work of fiction, it is rooted in the personal experiences and firsthand knowledge the author acquired during his decades of working inside the medical industry. 

California in the 1960s and first half of the 1970s had already seen a dramatic increase in medical malpractice lawsuits as juries awarded progressively higher sums for “pain and suffering,” a category that had no concrete limits and caused physicians’ insurance premiums for malpractice to skyrocket. Harvey chaired a committee that reviewed all malpractice claims involving a major California hospital during the crisis. Details of some of the cases he experienced are engraved in his memory, and small portions of these tidbits find their way into Malpractice! the Novel, his first novel. Roused by a recent New York Times article about the American male novelist’s fear of addressing sexuality, Harvey interleaved honest sex histories for his novel’s characters, adding a titillating sensuality to the suspenseful novel.

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Genre – Steamy Courtroom Drama

Rating – R

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Peter Simmons and the Vessel of Time by @RamzArtso

Michael - Chapter 1 -

New York City, October 22nd, Nighttime Hours

The gutters of the megalopolis gurgled softly. Pounding sheets of rain washed down the darkened, sewage-stinking pavement as I scrambled silently for cover. Finding none, I rolled over on my back, doing the very best to steady the constant rhythm of my burning lungs.

‘Well, well, well,’ taunted my assailant. The sound of his glistening Italian shoes breached my ears. My bleeding nose detected the stench of his cigarette’s burning tobacco. There was no need to use my special abilities to know that he carried a loaded gun in his gloved hand. ‘What am I to do with you, Michael?’

It was a rhetorical question. Both of us knew perfectly well what it was that he planned to do. What Victor had been sent to do.

He kicked aside a heap of malodorous refuse matter.

‘It’s a pity that you and I have to end our friendship on such an ugly note, Mikey. Really is. I wish you would make this easier on yourself and disclose the location of those flipping documents. But you’re one of those die-hard types. You always have been. I can ply you with questions all night long, but I won’t get to hear a single word out of your mouth, will I?’

Concentrating hard, I tuned out his voice, summing up the last reserves of my strength as I did so. Although it was immensely difficult, considering my horrid physical condition, I managed to glance into the future for a few short seconds.

Nothing there.

Nothing to help me trick death or buy time, Only Victor leveling the gun to my head and squeezing the trigger. Nothing could be done to ameliorate the situation.

My heart accelerated with his every nearing step. Every cell in my body was fraught with rising alarm.

Click.

His golden lighter made a faint sound as he flicked away a cigarette and lit another. A crooked grin spread below his pencil thin moustache. He chuckled to himself, euphorically inhaling the poisonous fumes. He was going to enjoy this.

‘Ah, what a pity,’ he said dramatically. Victor had always been an artist. Since the moment we’d met, I had always opined that he would have been better off freelancing as a dramaturge. ‘This is my last one. I guess I’ll just have to get some more on the way back.’ He crumpled up the empty pack of smokes and chucked it away carelessly.

I knew that I was running out of time. Before Victor was done having his last cancer stick I would most definitely be dead. He took a long drag, carefully and patiently attaching a custom-made silencer to his deadly revolver. He made sure to take his time, savoring every moment.

Click.

This time it was him unlocking the safety catch on his handgun.

That damned revolver had always been his only weapon of choice, the reason probably being that it left no shell casings at the crime scene.

Pure panic washed over me, my mind began to race, injecting fresh waves of adrenaline into my veins. I commanded my exhausted brain to foresee the future. But again, all I managed to extract was a gloved finger pulling at a smooth, vicious trigger.

‘Not trying to play your little tricks on me, are you, Mikey-boy?’ Victor asked. He sounded like he had just caught a small child red-handed in the process of stealing candy. I still didn’t answer, trying to look past the barrel of his gun in order to grasp something, anything which would help me escape the dratted lunatic.

In my mind’s eye, I foresaw a black feral cat scamper across the dirty, empty alley where I lay and Victor sneered. It appeared to be headed our way, looking to scavenge the nearby scuffed garbage cans for food residue. Somewhere in the immediate vicinity, an angry, severely inebriated derelict mishandled his one and only bottle of wine. It slipped from his hands and exploded all over the cold pavement just like a child’s water balloon. Then police sirens undulated in the night, but they were too far off to safely see me out of the quagmire that I found myself in.

My heart sank like a stone at that realization.

All of those readings were useless. With an aching head and unsteady hands, I was about to withdraw and accept defeat, when it suddenly dawned on me exactly how I had to act in order to turn the tables on Victor. Working under pressure, my mind quickly concocted a course of action that couldn’t even be called a plan, for its multiple flaws and drawbacks. All I needed was a touch of good fortune, which was a gamble, really, as I seemed to be out of luck for the day. Victor’s deadly revolver was a testimony to that.

Pulling it off would be a long shot, but despair galvanized me into action. I hesitated a tenth of a second, then filled my chest with air and yelled as loud and cheerily as possible. ‘Money! Money falling from the sky! I can’t believe this! Hundred dollar bills! Lots of them! They are everywhere!’

Victor’s bushy, raven-black eyebrows knitted together in confusion. ‘What? What the heck are you saying? Have you gone mad with fright?’

‘Money! Lots and lots of cash!’ I kept shouting zealously, perhaps sounding like a complete moron, which I dearly hoped only added realism to the note of exuberance in my voice.

‘Good God, man, pull yourself together and summon enough courage to die with dignity!’

My trick had worked.

The homeless drunk I had previsioned came careening into the alley, with a hopeful, out-of-this world expression on his smeared, bulldog-ish face.

‘Wha?’ he demanded.

‘Hundred dolla bills?’ He looked around quizzically, tucking away tufts of disheveled hair behind a pair of begrimed ears, and expecting a heavy shower of promised cash.

‘Where? Where’s the money?’ His eyes glinted with recognition and reason at the unexpected sight of Victor’s gun. Victor, without thinking twice, pulled the trigger before the man had even managed to fully lift his hands in a defensive gesture.

The silencer flashed, whistled and disembogued a trail of white smoke into the dank air. The wino stumbled forward, legs all rickety, one hand clutching at the expanding stain on his grungy old jacket, and the other greedily wrapped around the half-empty bottle of alcohol. With a bloody cough, he fell face forward, shattering the long-neck into glittering slivers and several larger fragments of sharp glass, in close proximity to where I lay sprawled on my back. Victor sneered, the police sirens came into life, probably chasing down some juvenile delinquent–the city never slept. It was an improbable stroke of luck, but the black tramp cat from my recent vision produced a loud yowl, and acted in exact accordance with my calculations. It was scared off a large, silver trashcan by the sound of the breaking bottle, and during its blind flight, had managed to get itself tangled up in between Victor’s feet. Caught by complete surprise, Victor lowered his gun to execute the unexpected guest, not a dreg of pity in his dark eyes.

Using the distraction to my advantage, I snatched the biggest shard of dark, shattered glass glinting close-at-hand and jumped to my feet. With my arm stretched out before me, I accelerated right into Victor like greased lightning. Overcome by a blinding surge of energy as well as the natural instinct of survival, I slashed at his stomach, instantly splitting it open. His neck cords strained and his face became a mottle of red and white shreds as he tried to raise his armed hand for protection, but I grabbed it with my own, and drove the sharp glass into his shoulder.

He misfired a couple of rounds and cried out in pain. The formal black fedora, which had been nestled on his head at a rakish angle, seesawed to the ground in a manner analogous to a falling feather. He himself sagged to his knees, shivering spasmodically as if from ague. For one brief moment, I stared down at him, my bloody hands and the defunct vagrant’s face, which was frozen in a horrible rictus of stunned horror. Being caught up in the moment, I seriously contemplated administering the coup de grace. But then my anger simmered down, and I reevaluated my thoughts, deciding that Michael Fleming wasn’t a murderer. At least, not yet.

My heart thumped with shock, every muscle in my body trembled, every nerve in my system burned. I dropped my makeshift weapon, then doubled back and turned around before floundering over to a concrete wall. I felt sick and waited for the nausea to pass. Once that was out of the way, I broke into a sudden and purposeful sprint. I left the dark alley running like a madman through the driving rain, never daring to look back.

I was worn out, but there was still some urgent business I needed to attend to. And time was of the essence. A person’s life was at stake. All that stood between them and eternal rest was me, and on the dot punctuality.

However, the person in question had no idea of the impending threat to their life.

Peter Simmons thinks he is an ordinary boy, before he is abducted by a man with certain special abilities, learns of his inescapable destiny, befriends immortals and becomes famous wordlwide. Why? Because Peter Simmons is mankind’s last hope for survival.

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Genre – Young-adult, Action and Adventure, Coming of Age, Sci-fi

Rating – PG-13

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Website http://ramzartso.blogspot.com/

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Excerpts From The House By Sebastiana Randone @sebasti29567440

EXCERPT FROM THE HOUSE – SEBASTIANA RANDONE
Page 88
This guaranteed a life time of opulence that was steadily profligate. It is fair to say that she lacked that parsimonious streak which one often finds amongst
the affluent. This predilection for excess guaranteed her considerable
popularity among her large community of acquaintances.
Childless, husbandless, and therefore unencumbered, Immelda spent the
first few years of her widowhood travelling throughout the continent. This
experience equipped her with an erudite wit and a refined sensibility, largely
inculcated by exposure and introductions to many of the finest estates of
Europe. Back in England, and residing in the Florentine/Rococo styled
estate known as ‘Elysee’ which was specially designed, Lady Brackenthorne
had developed a predilection for entertaining. She was renowned for hosting
social events during the full moon. These parties would last over several days
and nights, and were comparable in extravagance to those feted festivals
thrown by the hedonist king, Louis Quatorze.
With a penchant for all things pagan, this self-avowed ‘witch’ often
recreated rituals involving a collection of invitees presiding in the casting
of circles, leaping and dancing round large bonfires in the garden.
These guests had been spied on many a midsummer evening gambolling
unfrocked on the capacious grounds of the Elysee estate. As was to be
expected, such displays of Dionysian ostentation had created much idle
embellishment in the imaginations of those neighbours turned voyeurs,
who found loitering on the fringes irresistible. And so word rapidly
spread that Lady Brackenthorne was the hostess of orgiastic gatherings.
It was during one of these theatrical occasions that Sammy first met
the charismatic and raven haired hostess, whose sensuality was equally
matched by a gregarious and outgoing personality. Since the death of her
husband, rumours had abounded over her licentious appetite for younger
men. It was therefore no great surprise to learn that Sammy had become
her latest conquest. What was novel however and without precedent,
was the fact that she had the young scamp now residing at her palatial
estate. The consummation of this union took place on the very same
evening that Luna was visiting Alderry Place, when Sammy had been
conspicuously absent. It was also at this time that he finally succeeded in
winning over her ladyship’s affections, and so commenced the impetuous
romantic merger. The chemistry between the disparate couple justified
the young man’s immediate instatement to Elysee. Shadowy and sly as
Sammy was, he appealed to the heathen loving lady, who had eschewed to
date numerous suitors of more decorous and placid dispositions.

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Genre - Historical, Fantasy, Romance

Rating - PG-16

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Sunspots by Karen S. Bell @KarenSueBell

As soon as we entered, he morphed into the perfect host and made himself busy taking my bags out of the way. He said please sit down, get comfortable, take off your shoes. That sort of thing. He offered a drink. I sipped slowly, grateful for the distraction and looked at the view. He turned on music and joined me on the sofa. Was this his normal routine? He sat beside me close. He pulled me to him, closer. He swallowed my eyes with his. He took the drink out of my grip. We kissed passionately for several minutes. Then he led me hurriedly to the bedroom still kissing me, me kissing him, he kissing me in a furious manifestation of lust. Misgivings? What misgivings? Doubts? What doubts? I was on fire but still noticed the 1000 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, silk duvet, hand-carved teakwood bed. Custom drapes, recessed lighting, brass lamps. I thought of my dumpy apartment. I thought of my mother’s dumpy apartment. I thought of all the cautionary tales of dallying or marrying above your class like Forever Amber, Vanity Fair, and Edith Wharton’s Undine Sprague in Custom of the Country. And then I thought of My Fair Lady, Pretty Woman, An Officer and a Gentleman. And then he expertly brought my arousal to new heights…and I finally stopped thinking.
We made love with an intensity and earnestness that ripped away the outer world as we created a tempest of sensual pleasure. Later, in an exhausted heap, we lay close and he became gentle rubbing my arm and kissing the top of my head. He spoke softly, assuring me, “Aurora, I love you so. Don’t worry about anything, darlin’. You’ll come to love it here. You’ll see. You belong here with me. Look at me.” And he looked deep into my eyes and said, “Your eyes are so beautiful. They remind me of a deep clear lake and you should live near lakes,” he whispered. “I could get lost in your eyes,” and he kissed my eyelids and I began to accept the truth of his love. Kissing my mouth gently, he breathed these words, “Your mouth is like a wildflower in bloom and you should live among wildflowers. I could kiss your mouth forever.” And then he ran his fingers up and down my arm while saying, “Your skin is as soft as the yellow rose of Texas and I will cherish the gift of touching it for the rest of my life. You were meant to be here, Aurora, here with me.”
I believed him. I did belong here… with him…with Jake Stein…Mrs. Jacob Stein. Here in the blistering heat and bats’ haven. Here where cedar trees pollinate all year and make allergy doctors wealthy. Here where mild salsa is an oxymoron. Because Jake was here. And we kissed and kissed and got lost in each other’s souls.
And then suddenly, he jumped up. “It’s time to get dressed for dinner, darlin’,” he said. “Now listen, Aurora honey, don’t pay any attention to anything my mother or sisters might say. Sometimes they can be a little narrow-minded and they get carried away. For them, the sun rises and sets on Texas. So don’t take it personally whatever they do or say or if you get the impression they think all New Yorkers are crass heathens.”

I took a shower, blew my hair dry and could almost feel horse’s hoofs smashing my face as a mighty river bore down with a sudden force carrying me away forever.

Sunspots follows the healing journey of a young woman thrown into the horror of losing a spouse. It is a love story of loss and redemption and the ghosts that haunt our lives and our houses. Skirting the genres of magical realism and romance, Sunspots, explores the existence of the afterlife and the paranormal. The story takes the reader on a path of high emotion as the narrator, Aurora, uncovers her husband Jake’s secret life and her own internal conflicts as she matures to self-awareness. The novel’s tone vacillates from irreverent humor to solemnity as Aurora relates her previous life with Jake and her present challenges. The title refers to the solar maximum which became the backdrop for Aurora’s conception when her hippy parents went to Canada to observe the Aurora Borealis. In name and in spirit, Aurora is connected to the observable and unobservable energy around us. With the help of friends, family, and the ghost of Viola Parker (her home’s original owner), Aurora accepts her fate and the secrets revealed about Jake’s true character. She realizes that in this life she will finally break the cycle of pain caused by her love for this man, Jake Stein, through the centuries.

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Genre – Contemporary romance, Magical Realism

Rating – PG-13

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Jack Canon’s American Destiny by Greg Sandora @gregsandora

This is an excerpt from my upcoming novel, Gabby, Angel of God.

“You think we have a strong bond, Gabby?”
“Of course, we’ve been inseparable, and I know you like me.”
“Love.” I answered softly.
Gabby pouted, “I told you, Bo, not to fall in love with me.”
“Well it’s too late, I already have, and I promise you…”
“What’s that, Bo? What do you promise?”
“That I’ll love you forever.”
“You won’t allow yourself the possibility that because I’m an angel you find me hard to resist. Bo, it’s totally normal for a human man to feel this way.”
“Gabby, hard to resist is the understatement of the century. Impossible to resist might be nearer the truth.” Gabby looked sad as I continued, “Angels have been off the radar for me, I never thought I’d see one, let alone spend time with one. I really can’t describe how it feels, except that I’m in love and at peace.”
“Oh Bo, it is going to be so hard for you when I leave.” She cautioned shaking her head.
“Gabby, I don’t get how any kind of relationship with that waitress isn’t going to cause problems with Jill. Worse without you to referee!”
“Bo, was that what I was back at your house?”
“Yeah, if that had been any other girl, let’s just say it would have ended badly. Now Jill and I are getting along great, because of the way you handled things.”
“Bo, I didn’t want to get into it awhile ago, because I knew you’d freak out.”
“Why?”
“Candy and you are pieces of the same soul. She’s going through a very hard time right now. Bo, being friends with you would help her.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yes, and I think you understand.” Gabby peered into my eyes.
“She’ll feel like she’s home?”
“Yes Bo, you get it!” She said happily, “You’re familiar in a way she’ll feel deeply even though she won’t know why.”
“Oh, I get that, but I’m a little worried.”
“What about?” Gabby voiced genuine concern.
“I’ve never really been friends with an adult woman before, you know, on my own. Sally and I had share friends, I’d tell my jokes and talk, but I’ve never carried the relationship. I wouldn’t know where to begin. I always relied on her, I mean…”
Gabby cut me off, “I want you to spend some time with her, she needs…”
“She needs me?”
“Very much, Bo, will you help her?”
“I’ll try, Gabby, but what will I do? How can I help? I don’t know the first thing about…”
“You start by just listening, try to be her friend. A gentle nod, an a hum here and there. Hugs, you can do it! For heavens sakes, Bo, it’s not brain surgery!”
“I guess it’s pretty important if we share the same soul. I’m up for it.”
“Great Bo, I’m proud of you.”

**************

My current novel

www.gregsandora.com

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Genre – Political Thriller

Rating – PG

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The Colors of Friendship by K. R. Raye @KRRaye

Fortuitous Bumps 2

The cold, January night made it difficult to catch her breath.  As Melody scrambled away from the frat house towards her dorm room, she wrestled into her coat and buttoned it up, snuggling in its warmth.  Maybe attending college in frigid, upstate New York wasn’t the smartest move, she thought as a bout of shivers wracked her body.  Snuggling in deeper, she tucked her head down and began barreling against the cold until she slammed into someone.

Books and bodies flew to the ground.

“I’m so sorry,” Melody stammered trying to regain her footing while gathering two books.  She looked at the face that stared back amused.  Steel blue eyes sparkled from beneath a crop of spiky, blond hair.  Large, firm hands brushed over hers as they collected the textbooks.

Full, rosy lips let out a sonorous voice that vibrated under her coat.  “Not a problem, I wasn’t quite paying attention to where I was going either.”  The good-looking guy easily helped her up with one arm while cradling his books in the other.  “Are you okay?”

Embarrassed but fine, she managed to nod.  He stood about six feet tall and his jacket clung to the muscular body beneath.  Her mouth went dry and her breathing slowed as his beautiful, blue eyes captivated her.

“Haven’t I seen you in Calculus class?” he asked.  “What’s your name?”

“Um…” She licked her lips and swallowed hard, trying to generate any modicum of saliva in her parched mouth.  “I think I’ve seen you around.  I, uh, took Calc, um, last semester.”  His insistent, teasing stare made her hot and nervous.  She fidgeted.  “My name is, uh…Melody, yeah Melody.”  She dropped her head knowing he could see her red-hot cheeks ablaze.

Adjusting the books, he reached out to shake hands.  “Well, Melody, nice to run into you, literally!  I’m Kevin.  Where were you headed?”

His hand calmed her down and she looked up without dropping her head in shyness.  “I just came from a party and wanted to get out of these shoes,” she said gesturing down.  “My feet are killing me.”

“Well, in that case,” he replied, floating a heart-stopping grin her direction, “we’d better get you someplace where you can kick those puppies off, huh?”

Melody smiled and followed beside Kevin after he motioned towards the nearby Student Union.  Once they entered the building he declined to go downstairs by the food court where the majority of students would congregate on a Friday night.  Instead Kevin ventured upstairs to the more intimate conversational areas on the top floor.

He pulled out one of the four overstuffed chairs surrounding a small table for her, deposited his books in another, and sat in the chair opposite hers.

Melody glanced across the small table.  What in the world was she doing?  Why had she followed Kevin here instead of excusing herself after he recovered all his books?  Normally she believed in good, old-fashioned chivalry, waited for the guy to pursue her.  Although…she smiled, the amaretto sour, in combination with her desire to prove Imani’s pessimistic outlooks on love wrong, drove her to abandon, or at least loosen, her normal inhibitions enough that she asked a guy to dance earlier!

“Would you like a mint?” Kevin asked offering her a peppermint candy.

“Sure,” she replied accepting the cellophane-covered treat.

“You feeling better?”

“Hmmm?”

“Your feet?”  Kevin laughed.  “Are they feeling better now?”

Embarrassed again, but feeling more comfortable, she giggled.   “Yes, they feel much better.  In fact…”  Melody kicked off both her heels and wiggled her toes.

“I’d offer to massage them, but I think I better get to know you first,” teased Kevin.

“Yeah, I think, that would be best,” she replied with a hint of flirtation.  Wow, she couldn’t believe her adventurous, less than lady-like behavior, but this felt exhilarating.

True friendship endures all obstacles…right?

Three college friends search for true love, NFL fame, and a successful engineering career. Will one friend’s quest for happiness endanger all three of their lives?

Naïve, romantic Melody Wilkins aims to find true love at college just like her parents. But will she sacrifice her soul to obtain it?

No-nonsense Imani Jordan strives for good grades and a chemical engineering degree. When a friendship offers more, will she follow her head or her heart?

Lance Dunn is only serious about two things: football and protecting his girls, Melody and Imani. When a threat enters their lives and tests their friendship, can he stop it before it kills them?

After the torrents of jealousy, sex, and abuse subside, will their friendship survive…The Colors of Friendship?

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Genre – New Adult, Contemporary

Rating – R

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Connect with K R Raye on Facebook and Twitter

Website http://krraye.com/events.html

 

 

Quality Reads UK Book Club Disclosure: Author interview / guest post has been submitted by the author and previously used on other sites.

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The Pat O’Malley Historical Steampunk Mystery Trilogy by Jim Musgrave @OMalley_Mystery

Excerpt from Forever More

* * *

     Mister John Anderson lived alone outside the city limits in Tarrytown, in a section called Sleepy Hollow, made famous by the Washington Irving story about the headless horseman.  The land out there is lush with greenery, and I could breathe much better than in the factory smoke congestion of Manhattan Island.  Many of the rich and famous had moved their lodgings out here when the banks of the Hudson become cluttered with people and businesses.  Sleepy Hollow Park held the large mansion of the tobacco millionaire.  It was three stories tall, and in the new Victorian architecture, it cast a wide shadow along the garden way as I rode my horse up to its steel-shuttered windows and doors.  I had seen the same protective enclosures when I was visiting the Federal Prison at Elmira in upstate New York.   This Mister Anderson was afraid of something, and I was going to find out what it was.

     When I knocked on the metal door to his mansion, I had to wait a good fifteen minutes before two armed guards opened it.  They wore the uniform of the Italian freedom fighter, Giuseppe Garibaldi, with the ostrich feathers in their helmets, the purple bloomers, and the field muskets in their hands.  I suppressed a snicker as I watched them walk ahead of me down the long corridor leading to the drawing room where I met with Anderson.  He had little furniture in this mansion.  It was like being in an empty museum to some ungodly hero.  The only art objects in the mansion besides the Garibaldi memorabilia were stuffed animals standing on tables.  These were common animals like dogs, birds, fish and cats.   

     Mister Anderson was a short man, but his eyes were vibrant, his gray hair was cut short, and his mustache was in the distinguished style of the robber barons like the new Tammany Hall boss, and present Congressman, Fernando Wood.  However, Mister Anderson’s actions did not show a gentleman who was in his right frame of executive mindfulness.  He skipped up to me, speaking freely to the walls around him, where were hung pictures of his dead son, Willie and this hero of his, Garibaldi.  I was afraid to really question him, dreading that my detective abilities had finally met their match against this quite eccentric gentleman.

     “Hello, Mister Anderson.  My name is O’Malley.  Patrick O’Malley.  I am living out in Mister Poe’s old cottage on Fordham Road at the behest of the Union Government and the Valentine family.  I have come to discuss your knowledge of Edgar Poe and perhaps the affair of Mary Rogers and her murder most foul.” 

     As Mister Anderson closed the steel door, he suddenly turned around, and a wild, abandoned look stood out from beneath those gray eyebrows.  “What?  Have you seen them?  Mary visits me now, you know.  She is quite the shrew.  Never lets me be.  In point of fact, I believe both Poe and she were out to get me from the start.”

     This was quite curious.  “Out to get you?  I don’t understand, sir.  What could they do to affect your life and safety?”

     “It was Poe who killed her!  That’s the truth.  He wanted money for his dying Lenore, his Annabelle Lee.  He was a ghoul and an opium addict.  His addled mind concocted the plot to sway the police away from his own activities.  My Mary was young and available, don’t you know?  Longfellow and the others wanted her, but Poe, the blackguard, wanted her for himself.  He wanted to replace his dying wife, Virginia, with this new one, this new phantasm for his wild and romantic imaginings!”

     “But, dear sir.  How can you say this?  What solid proof might you have to accuse Mister Poe of such an egregious act?” 

     “Why, it’s the best proof of all, don’t you see?  She tells me who killed her!  How can I argue with her ghost?  What more proof does a sane man require?”  Anderson began to laugh, and dance around the room, skipping like a schoolboy on holiday.

     I realized this old gentlemen was not in his right mind, so I bade him farewell.  I would look into his mental health and perhaps I could find out more legitimate facts about his relationship with Poe and Mary Rogers.

* * *

Here are all three suspenseful mysteries in one book!

Forevermore, the first mystery, was a #2 bestseller in Amazon’s Historical Mystery category. It has received outstanding reviews from readers, and it establishes Pat O’Malley as a detective sleuth par excellence. The second mystery, Disappearance at Mount Sinai, continues the development of the characters amidst an excellent caper. The third mystery, Jane the Grabber, plunges O’Malley into the middle of the Steampunk world, and it marks a turning point in the novels to come.

Forevermore Synopsis:

“Musgrave mixes accurate history with a spell-binding plot to create an amazing who-done-it! Watch for more Pat O’Malley Mysteries.”

In post Civil War New York City, Detective Pat O’Malley is living inside Poe’s Cottage in the Bronx. O’Malley is haunted by Poe one night, and the detective finds a strange note. As a result, O’Malley decides to prove that Edgar Allan Poe did not die in Baltimore from an alcoholic binge but was, instead, murdered. O’Malley quickly becomes embroiled in a “cold case” that thrusts him into the lair of one of the most sinister and ruthless killers in 1865 New York City.

Jim Musgrave’s “Forevermore” is a quick read in four acts that will keep your mind razor sharp trying to solve the mystery of Poe’s murder. Pat O’Malley must first find out how to become intimate with females before he can discover the final clue in this puzzle of wits, murder and romance.

Disappearance at Mount Sinai Synopsis:

What if the anti-Semites, racists, and terrorists wanted the final revenge following the Civil War? How do you stop them from committing the worst atrocity?

It’s 1866 in New York City. Civil War Vet and Detective Pat O’Malley’s biggest case returns him to the deep, dark South to search for the kidnapped wealthiest inventor and entrepreneur in America. But the widening gyre of anti-Semitism and racism pulls him down into the pit of hell itself. Disguised as an Oxford England Professor, O’Malley infiltrates the anti-Semites’ group and travels with his partners, Becky Charming and his father, Robert, down to a Collierville, Tennessee mansion.

At the crux of this case are a Jewish father and his five-year-old son, Seth. They have developed a unique bond that relies on Jewish folklore and a belief that they are Mazikeen, half-angel and half-human, born from the loins of Adam’s strange female cohorts during the 130 years he was banished from the Garden. Will O’Malley find Dr. Mergenthaler before it’s too late? What does this world-wide eugenics group have planned for the mongrel races? Read Jim Musgrave’s Disappearance at Mount Sinai, the second mystery in the series of Pat O’Malley Mini-Mysteries.

Jane the Grabber Synopsis:

What was it like before women were given rights to determine their own destinies? How was abortion and birth control used in the 1860s? What happens to a society when the last sexual taboo is permitted? Find out in the third mystery in the Pat O’Malley Historical Steampunk Mystery Series, Jane the Grabber.

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Genre – Historical Steampunk Mystery

Rating – PG13

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Website http://contempinstruct.com/Forevermore/

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The Benjamin Chronicles: Relativity by Matthew DiConti (Excerpt)

CHAPTER THREE

Explosions. Conal was surrounded by them. Black clouds of sulphur choked the atmosphere and screams pierced the air before being drowned by more explosions.

Conal struggled to see clearly. He was lying on the ground, wounded. His vision was blurry and his mouth was dry. His body jolted with every thud, every pound.

“Abby…” Conal murmured. The pounding intensified.

“Conal!” A woman’s voice broke through the fog.

More pounding.

Gasping, Conal sat up on the couch. His shirt was soaked with sweat.

“Conal! Are you there? It’s Edie.”

“Edie. Shit.” Conal jumped off the couch, breathing heavily. “I must have overslept.” “He peeked through the living room curtains to see Edie standing there, revved up and ready to go. “Uh, Just a second!” he yelled.

He stripped out of his shirt, rushing to find something relatively clean. He was out of breath when he came to the door.

“Edie, hey! I’m sorry about that. I guessed I crashed early last night and didn’t wake up until you knocked. Please, come in. Let me just get myself together here.”

“You could have had a concussion from that accident you were in. You’ve got to take better care of yourself.”

“Yeah, thanks, Edie. I’m all right. Please, make yourself at home.”

Edie’s white brows crinkled together and her lips pulled off to the side as she was quite unconvinced, but she passed a covered basket to Conal as she made her way into the house.

“I’d love some iced tea,” she said.

“Of course, where are my manners? Why don’t you have a seat, and I’ll be right back with your tea.”

Conal paused in the kitchen, gripping the edges of the sink to steady himself. That was a dream. This is reality. Conal could hear Edie nosing through papers and books in the living room. And there is an old lady in your house who will never leave you alone again if she thinks you don’t have it together.

Conal brought out some plates and the iced tea. He sat down across from Edie.

Conal Benjamin never let the love of his life Abigail Bradley know of his romantic feelings for her. Years of living with that regret haunted Conals life and left him with an emptiness in his heart. In one serendipitous moment they are reunited at an alumni science exhibit giving Conal a second chance but in a cruel twist of fate Conal’s triggers an unexpected chain of events sending Abby and himself through a wormhole to 1888 Whitechapel, London, the time and place of one of the most horrifying serial killers in history, Jack the Ripper. With the time machine lost and Conal and Abby separated, the fate of both of their lives hang in the balance. Nothing is what it appears to be and it’s up to Conal to unravel the mysteries that await him, before it’s too late.

“I could not put this cleverly crafted paranormal fiction novel down. I can’t wait to go on the next time travel journey with Benjamin! It would make for a great TV Series/Feature Film. Out of 5 stars I give it 6!”   - Kelly V. Dolan, NBC News Radio

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Genre - Paranormal Fiction

Rating – NC17

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Website http://matthewdiconti.com/

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I, Walter by Mike Hartner

Chapter 2

"Aye, boy, get over here."

I looked around but could see no one. I kept on until I eyed a big man on the ramp to a large ship with many masts. I stared at him. His face, though rugged, showed a lot of integrity, and his blue eyes instantly shone honesty to me.

His arms were the size of large branches, with massive biceps and muscles seemingly coming from other muscles. His chest was broad and sturdy, and while he looked to be only 30 or so years old, I could also see that age was starting to take its toll on him, as he was losing the battle with gravity.

"Aye, boy," he hollered again. "I said get over here." I went to him.
"Grab that box and take it inside to the captain's quarters." I did as I was told, not knowing who the captain was or where

to go. One of the men on board saw me and showed me where to take the box as he yelled down to the big man, "A little young and scrawny, eh, Bart?"

"At least he's working, ya' old salt!"

I grunted and moaned, hauling boxes all day. They were quite heavy, and while I'd done considerable manual labor in my young life, it hadn’t been close to this hard. Later, I started rolling large round barrels filled with salted meats. While I and another eight or nine men were bringing in supplies, an equal number were polishing the brass fittings on the ship. And I watched a halfdozen men doing wood repairs or sewing what I came to know as mainsayles.

At the end of the day, I was told to sit for dinner. While we were waiting for the food, the man named Bart came over to me, laid a paper on the table in front of me, and said, "Sign," as he shoved a quill in my hand.

I did as I was told, and wrote my name "Walter Crofter." He shook my hand as he read my signature and said, "Congratulations, Walter Crofter, ye are now a member of the Royal Marine Merchant Navy. Tomorrow, I take ye to get clothes, and ye real education begins."

It wasn’t difficult to sleep that night. But I was roused at an ungodly early hour.
"Get a move on!" came the command from a man I learned was named Coon and called a midshipman. He was yelling and shaking me at the same time. I rose slowly, but dressed quickly and followed him to the galley. We ate a breakfast of hardtack and grog.

Putting the quill down, this memory made me shudder. Grog is a term I will forever use for it, since it was basically everything wet thrown together, and most often it was disgusting. It often contained raw eggs with lemon or orange juice and was spiked with spices. I tasted cinnamon when we were in the Caribbean, and olive juice or oyl in the Mediterranean. I'm pretty sure that the cook spent most of his previous evening gathering all the leftover dinner juices and trying to figure out what else he could put with them to properly torture the stomachs and taste buds of the crew the following morning. Yet, as revolting as it generally was to eat, somehow we all managed to survive it.

Picking the quill up, I dipped it once more into the inkwell.

After the breakfast of hardtack and grog, Bart took me on deck. The skies were gray and overcast, and the breeze was heavy at times, making it seem much colder than it really was. He told me about the ship. Our vessel had three main masts, one in the fore, one in the mid, and one in the aft. Each of them had the riggings for at least five sayles, and they would be large sayles, too. I didn't see the sayles hoisted while I was with him this morning, but I found them later being cleaned and sewed. Coon told me that was one of the things we'd do when we came to port, we would fix the sayles. The sun started to peek out, and it was strangely warm and beautiful. Blue skies were something I had such little experience with, I appreciated it every chance I saw them.

Bart taught me a number of knots and how to tye the various sayles down. He also showed me, with the help of a pair of ensigns named Frog and Cat, how to climb to the crow's nest, and how to walk along the mast branches to tye sayles and let them out properly without falling. Since even the captain on this ship, who I hadn’t met yet, didn't want anybody falling, the men rigged a few extra lines as clip supports. A good thing it was, too, since I needed them in the early days. But truth be told, as time passed, sometimes I slipped just for the sheer joy of swinging down on that line.

Bart got me to a shoppe and I was fitted with the right clothes to work in, and before my first full week was over I could walk the mast and get up to the crow's nest with ease. The knots for the sayles were no challenge to tye. Holding one end of the string or rope, the other gets looped once or twice, pushed through the eye either over or under, and cinched. Big deal. Three-year-olds could tye these knots, and would do it without learning what the names were, either.

Walter Crofter was born into Elizabethan England.
In a country and a time where favor and politics were both deadly, can an honest boy stay true to himself?
Especially given his family background?

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Genre - Historical Fiction/Romance

Rating – G

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The Tortoise Shell Code by V Frank Asaro

BOOK I. 1

Rip Tide

“The Verdict is in! Anthony, the court just called; the jury’s reached a verdict!”

Laura’s words broke across Anthony Darren’s desk and crashed through his fugue. He had been staring out his office window, which offered a rather meager view of San Diego Bay five stories below—the waterfront a couple of blocks away. It was nothing like the dizzy perspective he’d had a few months ago from a different office, A much larger, much higher office, in every possible sense. He realized he’d been staring at the bay in deep distraction, not really seeing the tuna boats dragging white wakes through the etched waters, the aircraft carriers rising like steel islands along the Coronado Island shore. He glanced at his desk calendar: Thursday, February 10, 1980. So this is the day. Finally he turned and smiled at Laura. “Thanks. How do I look?”

“Great. But here’s your jacket.” She took it off the hook on the back of the door. “And I’ll let Andrea know you’re on your way to the courthouse.”

“Thank you.” He muscled smoothly into the well-tailored coat, but fumbled flipping back the collar. Laura was on it immediately, straightening the fabric out, squinting through her black-framed glasses. He caught her by the shoulders. “Laura, I need you there, too. Just switch on the answering machine and lock up the office.”

“Of course.” She smiled and then frowned. “Don’t say it like you’re uncertain.” He walked out between the shelves of law books lining each side.

Two blocks away and thirty stories higher, a mob of executives haggled around an enormous conference table in the Southern California Empire Bank Building. The only man not participating sat at the head of the table behind the only gold nameplate in the room. He wore the expression of a spectator about to win big money at a dog fight. He tugged a gray-flecked handkerchief from his pocket and blotted his forehead and drooping nose, then lifted a cup of coffee toward his lips.

A sharp double rap at the door made him halt the movement of the cup. The bickering among the executives instantly halted.

“Yes?” the man with the gold nameplate said.

An efficient-looking woman in her early thirties popped her head through the doorway. “Mr. Hooks, sorry to interrupt, but I just received a message from the Deputy DA. The jury is in.”

Hooks looked around at the assembled men, all of them now focused on him. He stood. “Excuse me,” he said, “while I go find out if I saved this bank or not.” Imperceptible to all but him, his hand trembled as he set down the cup.

* *

In a red tile-roofed house resting high on Point Loma, a hill overlooking the other side of San Diego Bay, a man sat on the couch in his darkened living room. His trim, muscular arms, tanned bronze, lay limp at his sides while he stared up at an imaginary spot on the ceiling.

He heard the kitchen phone ring. Heard his wife answer in a soft voice. “Yes, Joe Cruz is my husband. I’m sorry, he’s…oh! Oh, it is? Yes, I’ll tell him…I understand. Right away. We’ll be there right away.”

Joe continued to stare at the ceiling.

* *

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Genre – Legal Drama

Rating – PG13

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Secrets and Lies by Natashiah Jansen & Ethan McKenzie

Sharona sat on the floor in front of the bed in the hotel, clutching her knees and staring out the patio door. The curtains billowed as a gentle breeze blew in. She could still smell Jason's cologne lingering in the room. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her mind was blank. She could not think of anything even if she wanted to. She felt like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Lifeless. Empty.

There was a knock on the door, but her body refused to respond. Even if a bomb had dropped next to her, she probably would not have moved an inch.

"Sharona, love! It's me: Dad… Edward."

She turned to look at the door, and then got up slowly. An immense amount of sadness and heartache welled up in her chest. She could hardly stand up straight while turning the doorknob. When she saw Edward, she broke down. He held her very tightly and stroked her head while she sobbed.

"It's ok, honey… it's ok. I'm here," he said, trying to console her, though his own heart had been crushed by the death of his son.

"How did this happen? Why? I don't understand… He was standing there the one minute, and then next…" She couldn't finish the sentence.

"They said the driver hit a pothole and lost control of the pickup truck."

"I told him to be careful… I warned him about the traffic," she said.

"Sharona, love, everything happens the way God has set it out to happen. There is nothing you or Jason could have done to stop it."

"God! Is this what God has planned for us?"

"Honey… No one knows what will happen in the future. Come on. I know you are not in the mood, but we need to get ready to leave. I've made travel arrangements. We will leave in three hours time."

"Jason…"

"Don't worry, honey. I've taken care of everything," Edward said, trying to control his emotions; deep down, he wanted to scream "WHY?" at the top of his lungs.

Sharona threw all her clothes into her suitcases, not caring that her muddy sneakers were on top of her white D&G T-shirt. After she zipped her suitcases, it was Jason's turn. She packed each item neatly, and her tears left wet spots on his clothes. She gently stroked his clothes before she zipped the suitcase.

###

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Genre – Medical Suspense Thriller

Rating – PG

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Tainted Waters by Maggie Thom

Tainted Waters by Maggie Thom (Excerpt 2)

“Oh, Jaico.” Drained of energy, the woman sank down onto his naked chest.

“Oh, Corrine.”

She giggled. He smiled. It was always so easy. If there was one part of his job he enjoyed, it was this.

“How’s old Harry treating you these days?”

She leaned up on her forearms, her naked breasts brushing his ribs. “He still bellows. That man seems to think I have nothing better to do every day but answer his every beck and call. I’ve made it clear from the beginning that I won’t get him coffee, he can damn well get his own. The other day…” She smiled coyly. He was sure she was remembering their quickie in the ladies’ room at work. “Since I was feeling so nice, I decided to get him a coffee since I was getting one myself. He called me a stupid idiot for bringing him old coffee, he wanted four sugars, not black and he no longer used creamer. He then thrust it at me expecting me to get it for him.” Her finger trailed over his chest. “So I did and I added in blue food coloring. Jackass.”

Jaico howled. “Beautiful. Guess you got him back.”

She looked a little more confident. “Well I was trying to do something nice. He’s just so nasty. So many people are hoodwinked by him. He’s so slick with the big wigs but treats his employees like crap.”

“Hey, you told me he fired someone the other day. How’d that go? I bet you got to do all the dirty work?”

“I had to tell her she had a meeting with him, which is never a good sign. He doesn’t meet with anyone. I have to give her credit though, he must have been his usual self, because after she left, he came out with coffee dripping off his face, demanding I get him paper towels. It was so funny.” She giggled. “The timing of your call couldn’t have been better. I didn’t have to stick around and listen to him bellow.”

“Wow. What did she do before the coffee thing to get fired?”

“Well…. promise you won’t tell?”

Jaico reached up, cupped her face and kissed. “Love, you don’t have to worry about me.”

“I know, I’m sorry. It’s just I need this job. It pays good. The benefits alone are worth it. Anyway, I guess she was trying to run a story about this man who had stolen his wife’s necklace or something and Harry hadn’t approved it. I guess she did it on her own, without permission.”

“Oh, who was the guy?”

“Some wealthy dude. It sounds like he was trying to or maybe he got the insurance for it. I don’t know I didn’t get to see the article and I’ve only heard bits and pieces.”

“Is that all she wrote?”

“Yeah, that and just her usual drivel about some lame things going on around town. Her opinion. Nothing very interesting.”

Jaico’s phone rang. He rolled over, grabbed it and glanced at the number.

“Back in a sec.” He jumped to his feet.

“Okay but hurry.”

He looked back at the woman who was displaying all her worldly charms for him. He smiled as he made his way naked across the large hotel room and into the bathroom. He closed the door and turned on the tap.

“What?”

“I lost her.”

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Genre – Suspense

Rating – PG13

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Website http://www.maggiethom.com/

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Violent Season – Maj. Ray Gleason Ph.D. (Excerpt)

Chapter Two: “Soldiers of Christ”

By that spring Sunday morning, they were at the top of their game. They were eighth graders, the biggest kids in the school yard. School would be over in a couple of months and they would graduate and escape.

They all had made it into Catholic high schools. Not being known for their scholarship, they had not been accepted into the new, elite diocesan high school in Astoria, Mater Dei. But, they avoided shaming themselves, and their families, by being judged irrevocably stupid by the Catholic education system and being relegated to that anteroom of hell, the local public high school, PS 125. So, next fall, the three musketeers would split up as they travelled into the city to three separate Catholic high schools that thought the souls of these barely C-level scholars were worth saving.

As they got ready to file into the church with the rest of their class, the line of girls drew parallel with the line of boys. Mickey knew he shouldn’t be looking around—the nuns might catch him, or even worse, Joey—but he couldn’t help but look for Lori among the girls.

Lori, or Loretta Margaret McShea, as she was known to the good sisters of Our Lady of Lourdes parochial school, and her family had moved into the ground floor of a row house on Mickey’s block on Crescent Street about four years ago. The family came over from a place in Ireland called Cavan. Lori was the oldest of six McShea children, four girls and two boys, by Irish standards a modest-sized family. When they first moved into the neighborhood, they all sounded like they were auditioning for bit parts with Barry Fitzgerald in The Quiet Man. But, after a while in Our Lady of Lourdes’ school yard, they all were perfectly fluent in New York English. Lori was a year behind Mickey in school, a seventh grader this year.

Mickey had never had any interest in girls. But, for the last few months, something seemed to be changing. Gradually, he began to realize that he thought he might think otherwise. He wasn’t interested in what girls did; that was all pretty silly and useless stuff as far as he was concerned. But, he was becoming interested in girls… well… because they were girls. Why? He didn’t have a clue. He never gave it much thought. But, whatever was going on, it was probably sinful and should be suppressed, because it felt so… so… strangely delightful and alluring.

So, Mickey didn’t want to suppress it, especially with Lori, even if it did endanger the salvation of his immortal soul. For him, Lori was a blond-haired, blue-eyed ray of sunshine in his shadowy world of predators and power in the school yard, the playgrounds and the streets of the neighborhood. She was smart, friendly, and Mickey even found himself hanging out with her on her stoop, but only when Joey and Johnny weren’t around.

Now, when he saw her, something seemed to happen inside him, something he didn’t quite understand. But, he knew he was fascinated by it, and strangely saddened, attracted by it, and frightened by it, too. He felt happy and strangely excited by just seeing her.

This made absolutely no sense to Mickey, but here he was on a Sunday morning trying to catch a glimpse of Lori on his way into mass. Mickey suspected that somehow this was not the best way to prepare himself to receive Holy Communion, the spotless white body of the sacrificial lamb, but he didn’t want to miss the chance of catching a glimpse of her. He just couldn’t.

Then he saw her. She was a few yards behind him in the girls’ line. How could he have missed her? She was wearing a bright, pink ribbon in her short blonde hair. Not exactly part of the required school uniform, but Lori was a good student and a respectful girl, so the nuns cut her a break on the ribbon… bright pink… un cordon rose… floating in a sea of white and navy blue… the rose of an Easter dawn… la rose du monde[5]… the rose of her smiling lips.

Suddenly the words of a poem that his Pop used to read to him came flooding back. Apollinaire following a beautiful woman through Amsterdam, a woman he had seen on the street. He stood outside her house hoping for another glimpse of her… mes doigts jetèrent des baisers[6]…

“It took you long enough,” whispered Joey in his ear, “How the nuns didn’t spot you I’ll never know.”

“What are you talking about,” Mickey hissed back, jerking his head forward.

“What am I talking about?” Joey whispered, “If that girl back there with the ribbon were cream, you’d be a cat the way you’re lapping it up. You were looking so hard you almost walked into a wall. Who is that? Isn’t that one of the McShea girls from the block? You got a thing for Lori McShea?”

“No… no… I don’t…”

“Michael Dywer! Joseph Simon!” their teacher, Sister Agnes Immaculata, hissed at them, “Talking in line, being disrespectful, right before you enter into the presence of the Blessed Sacrament! I’ll talk to you two right after mass!”

After they passed Sister Agnes, Joey hissed into Mickey’s ear, “So, Mickey Dwyer’s got a thing for Lori McShea! Will miracles never cease, Lord, will miracles never cease?”

THE VIOLENT SEASON is an epic, expansive collection of heroic short stories centered on the gripping experiences of three young men and their families during the Vietnam War. The book presents a ‘coming-of-age’ narrative that begins in the lush river valleys of upstate New York and on the streets of New York City and provides an insightful perspective of youth and innocence plunged into the crucible of war.

As well, it transcends the “good guys, bad guys” portrayal of human conflict by presenting its readers with a depiction of good people, Americans and Vietnamese, caught up in unthinkably grim and difficult circumstances. THE VIOLENT SEASON celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and its ability to triumph over the horror and tragedy of war.

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Genre – Literary / Historical Fiction

Rating – PG13

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Collapse by Richard Stephenson

CHAPTER TWO

While Howard continued to sip his coffee in the comfort of his mansion, Richard Dupree awoke in his bunk at the Highland Valley State Prison in western California.  Las Vegas was fifty miles due east of the maximum-security facility.  At the bottom of a valley, the prison sat with mountains on three sides, the fourth side being the exit to the valley fifteen miles to the south.  The facility was built in the middle of nowhere, no towns or roads, nothing but heat and dirt.  The state of California spared no expense when erecting the prison.  Not only did they have to build the facility, they had to build the roads and utilities leading to it.  Once the infrastructure was in place, opportunistic land developers were happy to swoop in and build a small town in which the staff and their families could reside.  They even built a few hotels and restaurants for the employees of the prison and the people who visited their loved ones incarcerated there.  The overcrowded prisons in the state were happy to send their inmates; however, the primary function of the facility was to house prisoners who had a history of escape. 

Famous escapees from around the country were ushered to the isolated prison. California was proud to boast that they had the most secure prison in the country and welcomed the publicity.  Such publicity could only be rivaled by Alcatraz.  Should an inmate escape, they would literally have nowhere to go.  The mountains and the cruel heat saw to that.  An escaped inmate would not dare venture into the small town of Highland Valley; their captors and their families lived there and were well armed.  The inmates that did manage to escape died from the elements.  The heat and the sand were unforgiving.  Some of the escapees even came back to the front entrance of the prison and surrendered, desperately seeking shelter.  The Warden welcomed them back with open arms and escorted them in so they could discourage their fellow inmates from attempting to leave his fine establishment.  The attempts started to dwindle and then disappeared for good.  No one had attempted to flee into the blistering, hell-like terrain for over eleven years.

Richard’s cellmate was grunting out his morning dump on the toilet on the opposite side of the cell.  “Jesus, Billy, you can’t wait thirty minutes for the door to unlock so I can get out of here?”

“Sorry, man.  No choice.”

Richard rolled over and crammed his face in the pillow to escape the stench.  His cellmate had many flaws that continued to grind on his last nerve and this was one of them.   Tank, as his cellmate was called, had very little consideration for anyone, not even his own cellmate.   Incapacitating anyone that called him on his lack of consideration was one of Tank’s favorite activities.  When you stood 6 foot 9 inches tall and weighed in at three hundred twenty-five pounds of muscle, you could shit pretty much anywhere you damned well pleased.

Richard was no slouch himself.  He was in his early thirties, a few inches shorter than Tank, and in the best shape of his life.  Not much else to do on a twenty-five year sentence but work out and read books.  He tolerated Tank because Tank practically worshipped him.  When The Incredible Hulk was your number one fan, it was hard to pass up the advantage.  Richard was smart enough to realize that.  Richard chuckled to himself that Hulk would be a much more appropriate nickname than Tank.

Tank flushed the toilet.  “You hitting the track with us?”

“For sure,” Richard replied.  Richard ran six days a week.  Tank asked this question six days a week, and Richard’s answer was always the same.  “Us” was the gang that Tank was a member of, the Aryan Brotherhood.  Tank was about as proud as a white boy could be and was also the biggest racist in the Aryan Brotherhood.  For a member of a White Supremacy group, that was saying a lot.  Without even opening his mouth, his racism was literally tattooed across his body.  The three main attractions of his ink included a swastika across his forehead, a very angry looking Adolf Hitler across his chest, and the words “White Power” emblazoned across his massive back.  He had many others tattoos on his body.  Richard was disgusted by the racism.  The tattoo that shocked Richard the most was the one on Tank’s right bicep.  On it was a black man hanging dead from a tree; three hooded figures from the KKK looked up at him with torches.  One thing was certain, Tank belonged in prison, and the mere sight of him would ensure he would never attain gainful employment.  The thought of Tank sitting down for a job interview was a source of great amusement for Richard.

When Richard first met Tank six years ago, that tattoo constantly bugged him.  He thought for sure that any man brave (or stupid) enough to sport such a tattoo would surely be murdered, regardless of gang affiliation.  At first, Richard deduced that the Aryan Brotherhood was the most powerful and influential gang in the Highland Valley State Prison.  The Aryan Brotherhood made up around one percent of the prison population around the country and was responsible for around twenty percent of the murders.   It didn’t take Richard long to realize that the Aryan Brotherhood, while it had power and influence, was not even close to the top of the food chain.  They simply didn’t have the numbers.  The smallest Hispanic gang had almost twice the membership of the Aryan Brotherhood.  So, the fact that Tank bore such a horribly offensive tattoo bugged Richard even more.

Determined to speak to no one, Richard had decided not get involved with any of the gangs; he simply wished to do his time in peace.   The Aryan Brotherhood had other plans.  Any solid looking white guy who looked like he could handle himself always got their attention.  Richard certainly matched that description perfectly.

Recruitment was the number one priority of the Aryans.  They needed muscle, they needed numbers, and they needed soldiers to beef up the ranks.  They had their eye on Richard.  He was smart enough not to piss them off, but he was also smart enough to know how to ride the fence and not get involved.

That’s where Tank came into the picture.

Tank pretty much ignored Richard at first.  Tank couldn’t care less about recruitment; he left that to his fellow skinheads so he could focus on other things like extortion and turning the guards to do his bidding.  He even bragged that he was still able to get laid.  Richard cringed to think that most of Tank’s sexual encounters were probably far from consensual.

One day Tank went from not even knowing Richard was alive to suddenly thinking Richard was the greatest person to set foot in the prison.  He walked up to Richard on the yard; Richard was certain Tank was going to punch him in the face.  Instead of a punch, Tank clapped him on the back.

“What’s up, Killer?”

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Genre – Dystopian

Rating – R

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Widow Woman by Julie Tagliere (Excerpt)

“Where is she going?” Peter muttered, hunching over the steering wheel. “Can you even see a road?” Catherine stopped completely before easing the car onto a narrow dirt road dug deep with the ruts of generations of wagon wheels.

James, our neighbor, had generously lent us his ‘baby’ for the trip; I winced as brambles scraped the car at the turn. I desperately did not want to return her to him battered and scratched up.

Another unexpected flash of memory fluttered through my head and I saw myself wandering this road, a bucket of raspberries dangling from one of my hands and my mother’s warm, callused palm tightly clasping the other. Looking at the monstrously overgrown bushes scratching at the car windows, I wondered if the berries would still taste as sweet as they did in my memory.

At last, Catherine’s car jounced to a stop at the crest of a hill; from there, I could see the battered remains of what must have been my grandparents’ farmhouse. So much time had passed I could no longer remember.

Peter turned off the car and reached over the seat to grab our coats. I knew Minnesota’s bright blue skies of early spring were deceptive, fooling you just long enough to cost you a frostbitten finger or toe. Peter waited for me to get out, but I hesitated, my eyes fixed on the urn at my feet.

I don’t want to do this. Please don’t make me do this.

“Are you ready?” Peter asked.

No. I will never be ready.

I sat still, reminding myself how to breathe.

“Take whatever time you need.” Peter squeezed my arm then climbed out and walked over to greet Catherine and Pastor Alan, who were getting out of Catherine’s car.

To hell with M&Ms; I need a cigarette.

Catherine greeted Peter politely enough, but she quickly turned, waved and smiled, and headed straight for me. She’d covered her long, silver hair in a bright blue scarf. Catherine’s prominent cheekbones, wide mouth, and spunky elegance always reminded me of Claudette Colbert, the actress from the original Cleopatra movie—not the remake currently under way with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

Finally, the urn’s spell was broken. Happy to see her, I flung open the door and threw myself clumsily into her arms, almost knocking her to the ground. Those arms may have appeared delicate, but they were strong, enfolding me like two great wings. She’d been Mom’s best friend most of my life and now she was mine, too.

After a few moments, I pulled away, touching her scarf lightly. “This is pretty,” I said, furtively attempting to smooth my own tangle of dark curls.

A small smile curved her lips. “It was your mom’s. Well, I gave it to her, but she never wore it. I thought she’d appreciate my wearing color today. She always hated black.”

Nodding, I gulped the bracing air. I reached down and lifted the urn from the car floor, fortified by Catherine’s presence. I can do this now, I thought. When I turned, Pastor Alan and Peter were standing behind me.

“It’s beautiful here, Audrey,” Alan said and stepped in to hug me. He was a bear of a man, dwarfing even my lanky frame by comparison.

Brushing my hair away from my face with my free hand, I saw what Alan meant. Up here, away from the blank grayness of the road, broad strokes of unexpected color competed with the brilliant sky for my attention: verdant evergreens, impossibly white snow, and the black stream winding through the trees. Mom and I had never returned here together, but as I drank in the still beauty of her parents’ home I began to understand better the full extent of her loss.

Peter cleared his throat. I turned in time to see Catherine arch one perfectly groomed eyebrow at him. That arch was about as aggressive as she ever became, but signaled loud and clear that Catherine was not inclined to forgive Peter’s betrayal of me. She was deeply displeased but, as she would say, too well bred to show more.

“Are you ready, Audrey?” she asked.

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Genre – Women’s Fiction

Rating – PG13

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The Passion of the Christoph by Christoph Paul (Excerpt)

The Infinite Jest of Picking Porn Titles

While getting my MA in creative writing I managed a porn store in northeast DC where the most important job was picking out which new releases we would carry. To do this job well I had to make picks based on our clientele, who was 80% older African-American/African, 10% Hispanic, 7% slumming gays from DuPont Circle, and a few old white guys who thought the Internet had spies and/or communist rogues. To make this important decision all I had was a fax paper listing the brand, theme, and title of the movie, with no pictures of the covers.

Yet each week I would pick videos that ended up selling, leaving my boss very impressed. So along with recommending we give out free watermelon gum (yes, we really did), he said he wanted me to create a report for a new employee on why I chose or did not choose a new release video so the uninitiated employee could learn the ropes.

As an aspiring writer, I took great pride in the assignment to show this new employee that we were not just picking videos, but engaging in the all-important subjects of the humanities. To finish the report I left the new employee a bibliography to back up my choices and educate him on The Infinite Jest of Picking Porn Titles

HOME MADE—MASTURBATION “SOLO MASTURBATION”

I always pass on solo masturbation movies. Men do not enjoy watching them; I think psychologically it plays on the male fear of being replaced and unneeded¹. More importantly, when it came to aesthetics, my customers do not enjoy solo masturbation. One of our loyal patrons, Leroy², an African-American in his mid-sixties, shared his thoughts on solo masturbation films, “I wanna see a dick up that girl, not some rubber; bitch ain’t driving a car, she riding a dick.” Touché’ Leroy, touché.

TREASURE ISLAND—GAY “IN THE FLESH”

I needed to include gay titles, but it helped if they involved closeted African-American men. Our best-selling title was Secrets in Da Hood.³ Many times the movies showed gangstas⁴ consoling each other with their penises after they had committed a drive-by. Or they go to each other ’cause “the hoodrats⁵ just don’t understand what a motherfucker needs.” The covers usually show alpha-male black men wearing bandanas, staring at each other with a look of longing in their eyes. A definite yes.

CHANNEL 69 —OLDER “MATURE WOMEN”

Though I needed to pick a MILF title, and the movie below is a hairy genre which is also needed in the selection, but the brand Channel 69 is very poor quality and by quality I will use the term used in Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance⁶, which states “‘quality’ has classical attributes (good camera work, attractive women, tight editing) and romantic attributes (emotional performances, believable cock craving, and I guess what the French would call “Je ne sais quoi”—that thing you can’t classify but you like it). The Channel 69 brand lacks both and I would not purchase it for my customers.

CHANNEL 69 — HAIRY “FRESH AND HAIRY”

I try to get at least one hairy but Channel 69 is a no-go. To add to the statement above I will quote one of our regulars Ralph⁷, “Nuttin’ ever good on channel 69 son; I turn that motherfucker off.”

HEAT WAVE—BLACK “BBBW”

This film would not be taken because the brand Heat Wave has received many complaints: “Sloppy girls and sloppy camera work.” I had one customer even complain that the “Heat Wave Hos” had ass implants⁸ and he could tell this because “they don’t bounce right, it ain’t right.” So for quality’s⁹ sake I would refrain from getting the brand Heat Wave.

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Genre – Humor / NonFiction

Rating – NC17

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Jack Templar Monster Hunter: The Templar Chronicles: Book One by Jeff Gunhus (Excerpt 2)

Chapter One

Although I was born to be a monster hunter, for most of my life I didn’t know any more about it than you do right now. I mean, I knew about monsters. Who doesn’t? There are monsters on TV, in the movies, books, comics, you name it.

What I didn’t know was that they are actually real and that dozens of them were secretly living in my small town waiting for me to turn fourteen…so they could kill me.

Yep, you heard me right. And not only kill me, but there were elaborate plans on how to do it in the most painful way possible. Fortunately, monsters tend not to be very creative, so I’m pretty sure that all their ideas were just different ways to eat me. But still, it’s the principle of the thing. I mean, what had I ever done to them?

The day before my birthday was when I got the answer to that question.

It started like any other day. I woke up in a panic, realizing that I hadn’t done my English homework. After this initial realization, I quickly moved from panic into guilt, then right into acceptance, and then finally back to sleep. (Don’t judge me. I know you do the same thing.)

And that’s the best sleep, too. Right during the time when you have to get up. I don’t know if it’s the same for you, but I dream a lot more during that sleep. And, on some days, I can control my dreams a little. I clearly remember my dream that morning. It was about Cindy Adams, the cutest girl in the whole school.

Come on! You can’t fake me out that you’re not into girls yet (or into guys if you’re a girl awesome enough to be reading this book).  So I don’t want any “ewww…that’s gross” comments during the love story parts of this book. Don’t worry, there aren’t that many. And some of them are super cool.

Anyway, like I was saying, this dream was about Cindy Adams, the cutest girl in school. In real life, the real Cindy Adams wouldn’t give me the time of day. But in my dream, I walked right up to her, even though she was surrounded by a group of her girlfriends, and took her by the hand.

“Come on,” I said. “We’re hanging out together.”

She smiled and nodded her head. Her friends stared as she held my hand and walked away. More than just her friends, the whole school was watching. Cindy Adams was holding my hand like she’d been my girlfriend for years.

Once we were out of sight, I decided to try my luck. I stood in front of her, toe to toe, and leaned in for a kiss. She blushed, but didn’t slap me, start laughing, or run away screaming. (All possible scenarios in my mind.)

She was going for the kiss. Leaning in. Eyes closed. Lips parted…to reveal a row of jagged, pointed teeth in her mouth!

I tried to step back, but she had me by the arms, her fingers digging into my skin. When her eyes opened, they glowed red. She snarled at me, her teeth growing longer, sticking out of her mouth. She pulled me to her to bite my throat, when…

I sat up straight in bed, yelling at the top of my lungs.

My Aunt Sophie came running into my room.

“What is it?” she said.

I lowered my hands from my neck, realizing that it had just been a dream. I was glad that no-one was trying to rip my throat out, but I was a little disappointed that I’d only imagined the whole Cindy Adams thing.

“Uh, nothing,” I said. “Girl problems.”

Aunt Sophie smiled. “You’re turning fourteen tomorrow. That’s when the real trouble starts. Come on. Breakfast is ready.”

Aunt Sophie left and I dragged my lazy bones out of bed and into the bathroom. That’s when I noticed something strange. The kid in the mirror looked pretty much the same as yesterday, only…bigger.

I was the same height, but somehow overnight my muscles had grown larger. Not massive. I wasn’t suddenly going to be mistaken for a bodybuilder as I walked down the street, but something had definitely changed. It’s not that I looked like a wuss before, but there was nothing going on with my physique to brag about.  But this morning? Whoa. I was looking good. I flexed for myself in the mirror, marveling at how my biceps formed into a big lump on my arm.

“That is so cool,” I said to myself in the mirror.

Forgetting breakfast (not to mention my English homework), I pulled on my clothes and ran down to our basement where we had a weight bench. Aunt Sophie had gotten it for my last birthday, telling me that if there was ever a year when I wanted to work out and get stronger, this was it.

I had used it a little, but mostly it was just another place where we stored our basement junk.

I grabbed two forty-five pound plates and slid one on each side of the bar.

I eyed the bench press with those big weights on each side. The bar was another forty-five, making it one hundred and thirty-five pounds. No way. The most I had ever done before today was just the bar and twenty-five pounders, and that almost did me in after lifting it once.

Even though I was feeling strong, weirdly strong, I decided that I was being too optimistic. So I slid the forty-five pound plates off, replaced them with twenty-five pounders and lay down on the bench.

With a deep breath, I heaved the bar up, balancing it over my chest with locked arms. Slowly, I lowered it, half-expecting it to drop like a rock and crush me. But it didn’t. I rested it on my chest for a second and then tried to push it back up. My arms shot up like there was no weight at all.

I smiled, and banged out five reps right in a row. No sweat.

I racked the weight and sat up, looking at my arms in wonder.

You know what I did next, right? I grabbed the forty-five pounders and put them back on. I lay on the bench, looking from side to side at the giant weights, having second thoughts. Then I decided to go for it.

I grabbed the bar, lifted it off the rack and, straining more than last time, I lowered it to my chest then raised it back up. Ten times.

“What are you doing down there?” Aunt Sophie shouted from upstairs.

“Coming!” I yelled as I racked the weight.

I felt my chest muscles, not sure what was happening to me. But liking it. Whatever was going on, I wasn’t asking many questions. I decided to just go with it.  Maybe this was what turning fourteen felt like.

“Jack Smith!” Aunt Sophie yelled.

I decided I would worry about it later.  I ran upstairs and dug into the huge breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast that my Aunt Sophie had fixed. She poured me some juice and combed my unruly hair back with her fingers. She sat at the table, sipping her coffee, looking just a little sad. Even though I was jazzed about what had just happened, I was concerned.

“Anything wrong, Aunt Sophie?” I asked.

She shook herself out of her thoughts and smiled at me. “No, nothing wrong. Tell you what. Tonight’s your last meal before turning fourteen. You can have anything you want. What’s your pleasure?”

“Anything?” I asked.

“Anything.”

“Pepperoni and pineapple pizza from Papagallo’s and a giant bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream,” I said.

“Really? I mean, even if it was your last dinner ever, that’s what you’d choose?”

I thought about that melted cheese in my mouth, the tangy red sauce, spicy pepperoni paired up with the burst of sweetness from the hot pineapple.  Just thinking about it right now is making me hungry.

“Yep, that sounds perfect to me,” I said. “Can I invite someone over?”

“I’d like it to be just the two of us tonight, is that OK?” Aunt Sophie said.

There was that sadness again. I stopped eating. “Are you sure you’re OK?” I asked.

She nodded, but tears welled up in her eyes. She grabbed a dish and took it into the kitchen. Sometimes, when she looked like that, I wondered if she was thinking about my dad. I always had to remind myself that when I lost my father, she also lost her little brother.

My dad had been a soldier, some kind of special branch of the Army or something. One day, according to Aunt Sophie, because I was too young to remember, some of his buddies knocked on our door with the news that my dad had been killed. It was some big Army secret how he had died. Aunt Sophie said she didn’t know. But in the back of my mind, I wondered if she really did know and she was just keeping it from me.

I obsessed over my dad while I was growing up, always thinking of new ways that I could solve the mystery of his death. No matter how often Aunt Sophie asked me to leave it alone, I swore that when I got older, I would do everything I could to uncover the truth.

Don’t get me wrong; I missed having a mom too. She died when I was born and all I have left of her is one photo taken from a distance. But I think having Aunt Sophie basically as my mother made it a lot easier. And she’s awesome. She’s into fishing, rough-housing, playing baseball. She even comes to all the father/son events at school where we beat the other teams at sports, showing up all the jock dads.

Still, even with Aunt Sophie, I grew up feeling the loneliness that only an orphan can feel. That aching sense that something that is supposed to be there, just isn’t. And worse, that it will never be. Into that empty hole, I put all my anger and my frustrations and I used it to focus me on the one thing I wanted more than anything else in life:  to find out what really happened to my dad. It may not be true, in fact it’s probably not, but part of me wants to believe that when I figure it out, the hole will go away and the loneliness will be gone forever.  I can only hope.

OK. Enough of that. I don’t want to make you think this story’s going to be all mopey. Let’s get on with it. I’ve got to tell you about the first monster I saw that day.

After gulping down enough food for three kids, I grabbed my book bag and ran out the door.  The town of Sunnyvale was pretty rural. Our house was set back several hundred yards off the road and backed up to an old-growth forest. Trees lined our gravel driveway and our nearest neighbor was far enough away that you couldn’t see another house until you got out to the main road.

Once at the end of the driveway, it was less than a quarter mile to school, so I could easily walk to class. Most days, I ended up running because I was late. I glanced at my watch. There was no way I was going to make it on time. I tightened my book bag straps and sprinted up the gravel driveway.

Just like when I was lifting the weights, something felt different. My legs were like springs, pounding out long strides as I ran. I was easily going twice as fast as normal. I pushed a little harder and found that I had one more gear left and could go even faster.

I stopped when I reached the road, panting, but not tired. I looked behind me. A trail of dust hung in the air the length of the driveway, just like in a comic book when someone has gone super fast. I grinned. It was pretty cool.

I walked over to the first house on the street. It was empty and the lawn was overgrown with weeds, but it had a basketball hoop set up in the driveway. I slid my book bag off my shoulders and grabbed a ball half-covered in the tall grass.

I sized up the hoop. With a quick look around to make sure that no-one was watching, I bounced the ball a few times, then ran up to the hoop, jumped…and slam dunked it.

I’m not talking about barely getting over the rim and having the ball dribble in, either. I two-handed that bad boy into the hoop like I was an NBA all-star.  The day before, I had only been able to get a handful of net with my best jump.

That was the first time I felt a little bit scared. Whatever was happening to me was happening in a big way. And it clearly wasn’t normal. But, honestly, I didn’t feel that scared. Mostly, I just felt totally awesome about it.

Even from a block away, I heard the first bell ring at my school.  I grabbed my backpack and ran up the street, unaware that I was about to meet my first monster.

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Genre – Middle Grade / YA Fantasy

Rating – PG

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Website http://www.jacktemplar.com/

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