Author Interview – Stacey J. Mitchell

What is your favorite quote, by whom, and why? “Aim for the moon. If you miss, you might hit a star.” I love this quote from W. Clement Stone as I find it incredibly inspirational. I set a lot of goals for myself, and I really beat myself up if I don’t meet them—however unreasonable they might be. This quote reminds me that it’s good to aim high, even if I don’t always get there.

What is your favorite quality about yourself? My determination. If I decide to do something, I always see it through to the end and always to the best of my ability. I don’t like to give up.

What is your least favorite quality about yourself? I’m a very impatient person. If I’m struggling to get the hang of something, I sometimes have to take a step back before the frustration takes over. I think sometimes that if I had more patience, I might achieve things more quickly—but of course I’ll never know!

What is your favorite food? This is a really tricky question for me as the list of dishes that I love is endless. It depends a lot on my mood. Saying that, you can’t beat a home-made pizza, or a lamb tagine. My favourite cake is carrot cake—delicious!

What’s your favorite place in the entire world? The Devil’s Marbles in central Australia. It’s not very far from Uluru, and it’s an amazing place. I travelled around Australia in 2008 with my boyfriend, and we spent a night at the campsite there. It sounds silly but I’d never been somewhere so dark before! (I live in the UK, and no place is truly in the middle of nowhere here—not like that.) We lay back in amongst the boulders and looked up at the black sky, which was speckled with thousands of stars like it had been dusted with sugar. It’s just breathtaking.

Have you ever had writer’s block? If so, what do you do about it? Writer’s block is a tricky concept for me as I don’t allow myself to believe in it! I think all writers have good and bad days, but it seems to me that as soon as you attribute a bad day to writer’s block, you’re paving the way for it to keep happening. It’s not making an excuse, exactly, but the way I see it, if I don’t acknowledge it, it can’t plague me!

Who designed the cover? Kit Foster (http://www.kitfosterdesign.com/) designed the cover, and I’m so pleased with his work. I was pretty useless throughout the design process, and when I initially approached Kit about designing the cover, I had no ideas at all. Luckily, he came up with some great initial sketches, and we went from there.

How did you come up with the title? Normally, titles aren’t my thing. I can wrack my brains for hours and only manage to come up with the lamest, most predictable thing imaginable. But this one seemed to pop into my head. It was something that one of the characters said. I had a lightbulb moment and thought, “That’s got to be the title.”

Can you tell us about your main character? The main character in Red Threads is called Lily Robinson. She’s twenty-six and lives with her boyfriend Nick. She works in a small local history museum run by a man named Jules. All in all, Lily’s life is pretty regular. It’s ordinary, nothing to get too excited about—until she starts having visions, which accompany excruciating headaches. She sees red ropes connecting people, and then things get even weirder when she meets a stranger on a train, who knows her and the things that she is seeing—and tells her that he can explain it all and help her work out how to use what she sees to improve her life…

What inspires you to write and why? I’m the kind of person who writes literally everything down. It helps me clear my head. If I know I have a certain number of things to do the following day, I have to write myself a to-do list or I can’t switch off. Writing fiction is a similar process for me. If I get a story idea in my head, I can’t switch off until I sketch out an outline for it, or just start writing.

What inspired you to write your first book? This book—my first published novel—was inspired by a blog post I wrote during the 2012 A-to-Z Challenge. For every day in the month of April, you write a blog post on a different letter of the alphabet, starting with A and working through to Z. The subject I had chosen to write about was mythology: Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Native American, Japanese, and Chinese. My post for ‘R’ was a Chinese concept, the Red String of Fate, and it just went from there.

What are some of your favorite books, and why? I think Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts is an amazing story. I also love The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. He has such a powerful writing style that I find it impossible to put his books down.

Did writing this book teach you anything and what was it? I learnt the real value of working with an editor. You can be told over and over that it’s vital to have an editor go through your work, but I don’t think it becomes clear just how important this is until you’ve actually done it. No matter how hard you try to get it right, you’ll probably be making mistakes you didn’t even realise were mistakes—I know I was!

How long have you been writing? I’m going to give you a slightly clichéd answer at this point, but I’m afraid it’s the truth: I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. When I was much younger, I would annoy my parents for an idea so I could write a story for them. I’m not sure why I couldn’t come up with my own ideas, but there you go! My first attempt at longer fiction was called ‘Rose Meadow Farm’, and was about a riding centre. I don’t remember much about it, or even how old I was, but that title has stayed with me.

What is your greatest strength as a writer? I don’t really feel qualified to talk about my strengths as a writer, but I think the one thing that really helps my writing process is the ability to switch off the inner editor and just get the words down on the page, for the first draft at least. I think I have NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month http://www.nanowrimo.org/) to thank for that!

Will you write others in this same genre? Yes, I definitely will. I love the idea of introducing an element of fantasy to ordinary, everyday people and events.

How important do you think villains are in a story? This is an interesting question. I think that conflict is necessary to make a story interesting and to make the reader really invest in the characters he or she is reading about. Villains are one way to achieve this conflict, but I don’t think they are the only way—internal conflict can be just as powerful. It really depends on the story.

Who is your favorite author? I don’t have one favourite author, but there are a number of authors whose books I have really enjoyed: Khaled Hosseini, Veronica Roth, Essie Fox, J.F. Penn, Gregory David Roberts, J.K. Rowling, Joanne Harris, and Sebastian Faulks (to name just a few).

Can we expect any more books from you in the future? Definitely. I am currently planning the second book in the Fateliner series and will hopefully get started on the first draft soon. I also have an idea brewing for a post-apocalyptic novel.

What are some of the best tools available today for writers, especially those just starting out? Without a doubt I would recommend Scrivener as an excellent tool for organising your work (and I’m not on commission!). It’s a great programme that allows you to keep all your research and writing in one place. I’d also recommend reading the blogs of other writers. Whether you intend to self-publish or go down the traditional route, you will find a huge amount of advice in blogs. The industry changes so quickly that learning new things and keeping up-to-date is imperative.

What do you consider the most challenging about writing a novel? This might sound bizarre, but for me the biggest challenge in writing a novel was writing a complete story of 70,000 plus words! I started out as a short story writer, and there’s a huge difference between the two forms—not least the length. I had terrible pacing and plot issues initially, and had to learn a lot before I wrote something even slightly resembling a novel.

What do you do to unwind and relax? I love to cook, and for me preparing dinner at the end of the day is a great way to wind down. Other than that I read, and I also practice yoga.

Have you included a lot of your life experiences, even friends, in the plot? I wouldn’t want to include too much of my life or my friends in the plot of a book for fear that it would be too revealing, or friends might recognise themselves! Saying that, though, I think it’s okay to put elements of people you know in characters. Lily is a bit of a history geek, just like I am, but that’s where the similarities end.

Buy Now @ Amazon & Amazon UK & Smashwords

Genre – Contemporary Fantasy

Rating – PG13

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Check out her guest post 1 and guest post 2

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Website http://staceyjmitchell.com/

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Bradley Convissar – My Advice For Beginning Writers

My Advice For Beginning Writers

by Bradley Convissar

This blog post is going to be geared towards authors like me, those who have a full time job and write on the side.  I know there are many people who have the luxury to write as a full-time job, but I am talking mainly to the people who are trying to juggle their love of writing with a day job.  Juggle their love of writing with a family and the responsibilities a spouse and children bring.  Like a wise man once said… if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.  If you can find time to write despite the maximum amount of distractions out there, then you can succeed.  A lot of this information will be the same as you have read other places, but that’s okay.  If you can pick out a nugget or two, then it was worth it.

My first piece of advice, the most important piece of advice, is this: even if writing is nothing more than a hobby in your mind, a side project, you need to treat it like a job.  You can’t just say “I don’t feel like doing it today”.  It’s like the gym.  Or flossing. One day off spirals to a week off.  And then weeks.  You cannot write sporadically or haphazardly.  You need a schedule and you need to keep to it. Of course things come up: emergencies, busy days, vacation, etc where there is simply not time to write, but you need to do your best to drag yourself to your chair every night, sit down, and do it.  And once you start, a lot of times it’s hard to stop.

If you are married or live with a significant other, you must make that person understand how important writing is.  That you view it as a second job.  If he or she doesn’t understand, it can lead to friction.  So make sure you have that discussion before they think that you are ignoring them.

If possible, and this may seem silly, but find an old computer without an internet connection.  The internet is the devil.  I’m serious.  It is so hard to sit down, especially when suffering from some writers block or lack of inspiration, and get to writing when there is a whole World Wide Web out there to explore.  Facebook and Tumbler and Twitter and Youtube and game sites… they all offer so much more in the way of instant gratification, and the urge to play around is hard to ignore.  Half of the posts on my Facebook feed are from other authors: Get off of Facebook and get writing.  I know, it’s impractical to find or buy another device just to avoid the internet, but you need to find some discipline because procrastination is your enemy.  I could write a whole post on this, but I’ll leave that to someone else.  When you sit down, you must resist the call to play games or play around on the internet, because once you open Firefox or Chrome or IE, you can pretty much count your writing session, or most of it, goodbye.

Keep a drink at hand to keep you from eating.  And I don’t necessarily mean something alcoholic

If you plan on publishing yourself, plan on spending some money.  If you want to be treated like a pro, you need to put out a professional piece of art.  Get a cover done by an artist.  Pay an editor to read your manuscript, not only for grammar and spelling, but for content.  Beta readers and friends are great, but someone who is an actual editor is better.  You need to view this as a business.  You think to think long term.  Cover art and editing is an investment that will help you grab and keep readers.

Don’t want to give away your masterpiece for free, even for a few days?  Write some short stories and sell them for free through KND select.  The samples that Amazon offers are good, but a lot of readers want to see your ability to craft a whole story, not just the first twenty pages.  Remember, selling books is a lot less about the monetary    investment for readers.  $.99-$2.99 is reasonable.  Potential readers are much more concerned about wasting TIME.  They are much more likely to pick up your novel if you convince them of your ability to write short works.  Some of my most devoted fans discovered me by reading free short stories first.

Pricing.  Yes, on a $2.99 book, you make 70% for every sale while on a $.99 book you only make 35%.  But remember, 70% of nothing is nothing.  At the beginning, if you are unknown and need people to take a chance and write reviews, you need to sell at $.99.  At least for a while.

Keep on writing.  Even if your first book doesn’t sell thousands of copies, don’t let it depress you.  The more books you have to sell, the larger the library, the bigger the chance of developing new fans.  It is a rare author that hits it big with his or her first book.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Thriller / Horror

Rating – PG13 bordering on R

(Horror with some violence / Some sex, not overly graphic)

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Blog http://bradleyconvissar.blogspot.com/

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Orangeberry Book of the Day - The Passion of the Christoph by Christoph Paul

Visiting Speaker’s Corner

I can remember the carnival of sounds.

Speakers’ Corner in London, where anyone can talk about anything—except for the topic of the Queen, for talking about her, that would be undignified.

On that particular Sunday, I heard the first speaker say, “God is dead, we are all just gorillas, where the European apes have surpassed the African ones.”

I asked him how he came up with such a stupid theory. He remained polite, gave me a thoughtful nod, and said, “Nietzsche and science books.”

As a fan of both I felt saddened, but told him, “Well, you are the first racist I’ve met who likes to read. I’m from Florida.”

He then told me he could see the strength of my Italian blood and that Mussolini was “truly a great man.” I said, “Um, thanks, but that doesn’t make you any less wrong or less racist.”

He responded in a dignified tone, “Well, we will just have to agree to disagree like gentleman.” He then wished me a good day and gave me a strange bow showing me that British White Supremacists are just as stupid as the American ones—only way more polite.

I left the well-read racist and walked over to a tall blond man preaching to a large crowd. He was holding a Bible and wearing Wrangler’s and a cowboy hat, with a big cross around his neck.

He called himself the Christian Cowboy and had an American accent that sounded Texan. He said he was done preaching but wasn’t finished with the Lord’s Work and he encouraged us all to follow him into battle. We did, until we arrived in front of a group of Islamic Fundamentalists.

Three of them preached for the need for Sharia Law in England. As they quoted a verse from the Qur’an, the cowboy started to laugh and heckle them, calling them Satan’s fools and terrorists. The young Muslim leader with a prepubescent beard said the Christian was the fool and should feel shame.

The cowboy responded that the boy should be ashamed because he couldn’t grow a good enough beard for Allah.

I left the holy war and walked toward a short bald man waving his hands and screaming about how sexism was good and he was a proud misogynist. He shared the wisdom that all men are stupid these days because of too many female teachers. He said the worst thing was that American lesbians had reached England because The L-Word was in syndication.

He ranted for another twenty minutes until he finally admitted it had been a really long time since he’d gotten laid.

As his soapbox turned from misogynist to trying to get sympathy sex, I left him for a more moderate-sized crowd where a clean-cut looking man in his thirties praised the practice of being a vegetarian. He gave simple-to-follow solutions to ending world hunger, losing weight, and to stopping the harming of animals.

His speech was the most sensible one I had heard so far, but his voice was very monotone and he lacked stage presence. While the small crowd nodded and a few yawned, I noticed many of them kept looking to the right, where a British black man was wearing what looked like a Burger King crown, wearing the United Kingdom flag on his back like a Superman cape.

As the vegetarian man continued to talk about the dangers of cow flatulence, the small group moved away until we reached the self-proclaimed Caped Conservative.

He welcomed us but said we were most likely ignorant peasants who didn’t realize that the only way to restore England’s greatness was to make George W. Bush prime minster of England.

He spoke with great passion on why “Dubya” was one of the greatest leaders in the history of western civilization and how England should make him a dual citizen or even king.

Most laughed at him, but an older American woman gave me a concerned look, then grabbed my arm and said, “I’m really concerned for him . . . I think he’s the craziest of them all.”

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Genre – Humor / NonFiction

Rating – NC17

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Website http://christophpaulauthor.com/

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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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Orangeberry Book of the Day - A Widow Redefined by Kim Cano

Chapter 1

Standing in the snow in front of my husband’s grave, I came to an unexpected realization. What used to be a romantic tribute had become something disconcerting.

As I kneeled down to lay a pink rose at the base of Justin’s headstone, I noticed a bouquet of yellow daffodils in the spot where I planned to place my flower. Daffodils? From whom? I tried to wrap my mind around why they were there, to solve a mystery I hadn’t anticipated.

Then a strong gust of Chicago wind slapped across my face. And with it came a new level of comprehension. Today was Valentine’s Day. These flowers were fresh.

Confused, I began to look around. I scanned the cemetery for others and saw a lone groundskeeper cleaning near the entrance. I dropped my rose and began running in his direction.

Arriving short of breath, I asked, “Have you been here long? Have you seen anyone else here recently?”

“No,” he said, eyeing me with caution. “I just come from break.”

Out of frustration I grasped for anything. “Okay, well is there a log of some kind? Of the people who come and go each day?”

My visitations had never been recorded. I knew this.

The man could see its importance to me, so he gave it some thought before responding.

“No,” he said. “No records.”

Disappointed, I stood there, staring at him. He gazed back at me, with a polite smile on his face. Then, after an awkwardly long pause, the groundskeeper’s look changed from pleasant to irritated. He mumbled something about being busy and walked away.

My mind began racing and I felt the pulse of a headache starting in the back of my skull. When I left work earlier, I’d been happy to find it wasn’t cold and gray. Driving into the cemetery, I had been captured by the particularly brilliant sunset; the sky blazed with pink and purple streaks.

Now, as I stood alone, the sky was dark.

Suddenly, I couldn’t leave fast enough. I began running toward my car, somehow managing to not trip or fall, then hopped in and slammed the door shut. A little flustered, I dropped my keys as I went to start the engine. I felt around and finally discovered them jammed between the front seat and center console. I pulled them free, started the car, then peeled out of the parking spot like a teenage drag racer.

As I turned left onto the main road to head home, I considered the possibilities. Maybe Justin’s parents were in town and had gone to the cemetery. They popped in from time to time, not always stopping by to say hello. The rare trip to see their grandson was the only reason they ever seemed to bother with me.

I knew it wasn’t my mom. After the funeral she never went back, although she was respectful of my visits, which were many over the last two years. Since the funeral, my routine—coming on holidays and his birthday—had always been the same. Only the seasons changed. But today my world tipped slightly off its axis, and I couldn’t help but recall what my older co-worker Barb had once told me, that the only constant in life is change.

Something in the pit of my stomach didn’t like it.

As I got closer to home, I tried to forget the flowers. I wanted to seem normal to my son, Tyler, and my mom. He’s only seven, and believed I was out visiting a friend. Mom, on the other hand, is quite perceptive. Nothing gets past her. Stressed out and feeling a migraine coming on, I turned right onto the street where I live.

“Hey honey, I’ve got your plate in the microwave,” Mom called out, after she heard me come in.

I set my keys and purse on the sofa, took off my coat and hung it up. Then I walked into the kitchen.

“Amy,” Mom said, “You look terrible. Are you okay? You have sweat beads on your forehead.”

I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “Oh,” I replied, “I’m fine, just a little cold.”

She gave me a funny look and put my food on the table. I sat down to eat right away, hoping she wouldn’t ask more questions. Then Tyler ran in.

“Mom. Grandma and I went to the library. I got a DVD on bugs of the desert southwest. You wanna watch it with me?”

“Sure honey.” I somehow managed to eat dinner and hold a coherent conversation, but the whole time I felt like I was sinking in quicksand. Luckily, no one seemed to notice. Afterward, Mom returned to her novel, and Tyler and I watched the bug program; at least it appeared like I did. Mostly I just stared at the TV while thinking about the daffodils.

“Scorpions are so cool. Don’t you think?” Tyler asked, interrupting my thoughts.

I despised bugs, but I didn’t want to disappoint my son. “Yeah, I guess they’re pretty neat,” I agreed. “You know, it’s almost time for bed soon. I’m going to take a bath, and then I’ll come and tuck you in.”

Tyler frowned but didn’t put up a fight. He was well-behaved that way. He put the disc back in its case while I left to go to the bathroom. Once inside, I dimmed the lights and locked the door. I turned the tub faucet on to as hot as I could stand it, added some aromatherapy salts, undressed and climbed in. As the water level grew, I sunk deeper into its protective womb. I closed my eyes and let the warmth slowly relax me. As so often happened when I relaxed, an old memory surfaced—one I try not to remember—of the day my dad moved away, leaving my mom and me for another woman. I was just a kid.

Tears began flowing down my cheeks and into the water. It was a silent sobbing so as not to disturb anyone else. Then my mind began to race again. Daffodils! Soon my head throbbed with unbearable pain. I couldn’t allow myself to think about any of it a moment longer, so I released the drain, grabbed a towel and climbed out.

I must have lost track of time, because when I went to tuck Tyler in, he was already in bed, asleep. I leaned over and kissed him on top of his head, then gently closed his door. When I got to my room, I noticed a bottle of Excedrin lying on the dresser, so I took two, without water, and collapsed into bed.

While lying in the dark, I decided to think of something happy. A good memory. A previous Valentine’s Day. Justin always took me to Francesca’s, our favorite Italian restaurant. I could almost see us sitting at a candlelit table, drinking wine and eating pasta.

Justin raised his glass, “Someday I’m going to take my kitten to Paris.”

I flushed. Even after years together, he still had that effect on me.

“We’ll eat at the Eiffel Tower restaurant for your birthday. Then we’ll go on one of those Seine river cruises. What do you think?”

“Say the word and I’m packed,” I said.

We spent the night talking, sharing tiramisu. Justin glowed with health and his blue eyes sparkled as he described plans to expand his carpentry business. Soon we’d be financially set. We’d be able to afford to travel the world together, like we always talked about. I don’t think I’d ever seen him more excited about anything as he was about this.

People shouldn’t die of cancer at thirty.

Every good memory eventually ended up there… in reality. There was no escaping it, no matter how hard I tried. And now there was the mystery of the daffodils. I didn’t know what to think, but I desperately needed rest if I wanted to make it to work in the morning, so I shut my eyes and willed my mind to stop racing.

I dreamt of Justin. We floated peacefully together on a lake in a rowboat. The sky was clear and the sun shone bright. He said something funny that made me laugh, causing me to lean over and clutch my belly. When I regained composure and tossed my head back up, still smiling, clouds had filled the sky. They had an ominous look about them, angry. Lightning sparked followed by loud claps of thunder. I looked at Justin, wondering what we should do, but his expression was blank. Then the waves grew choppy. All at once, swells the size of skyscrapers surrounded us. One moment we were in their trough, the next we ascended their foamy crest. Terrified, I looked over at Justin, seeking some kind of help. He remained blank-faced and unresponsive. Then, as we began descending back into the dark cavern of the wave, the boat tipped over, and I woke up, choking.

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Genre – Women’s Fiction

Rating – PG

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Website http://www.kimcano.com/

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Orangeberry Free Alert - EleMental: A First-Person Shooter - Steven O’Conner

EleMental: A First-Person Shooter - Steven O’Conner

Amazon Kindle US

Amazon Kindle UK

Genre - Science Fiction

Rating - G

4.6 (12 reviews)

Free until 11 June 2013

The future. It's all about friendship, love ... and dangerous video games.

New cover! Book 1 of the young adult sci-fi fantasy series. (This is the kindle ebook edition of the previously trade-published paperback EleMental.)

Winner of the Young Adult Fiction for manuscript development at Varuna Writers' House (Australia's only national writers' centre).

Bookseller+Publisher review:
'... a fantastic and exciting debut novel by Steven O'Connor ... entertaining mix of futuristic sci-fi, horror, action and angst ... this reads like Philip K Dick for teenagers. With the narrative sneakily shifting between the real and virtual worlds, O'Connor explores some fairly complex and sophisticated issues in a thrilling and accessible way.'Bookseller+Publisher, June 2010.

The story:

Willis, a loner not by choice, is gradually drawn into friendship with Zeb - cool and reckless - and into love with Arizona - bold and untouchable.

Set in 2050, the three teenagers encounter a deadly new virtual reality game called EleMental. Deliberately designed to be highly addictive, to control rebellious asteroid miners, EleMental has a byproduct no one was ready for: gameblur. One moment, you're at your desk, the next, you're battling something half-dinosaur, half-tank.

What Amazon reviewers are saying:

• 5.0 out of 5 stars. 'Clever, fast-paced and brilliant. A masterpiece from a genius in this genre. I highly recommend this book.' (G. Bachelard)
• 5.0 out of 5 stars. 'I bought EleMental for my 11-year-old son and he loved it. Intrigued, I read it myself. Highly recommended.' (Euan Mitchell)
• 4.0 out of 5 stars 'I got this when it was in paperback. I really liked it. Now I see it's on Amazon as an ebook ... I'm getting it again.' (Angry customer)

If you enjoy fast-paced action, strong characters, and a fun writing style, then EleMental: A First-person Shooter is for you! Download a sample or buy the book today.

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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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