Orangeberry Free Alert - Flying Soup by Bobby Adair

Flying Soup - Bobby Adair

Amazon Kindle US

Amazon Kindle UK

Genre - Satire, Political

Rating - R

4.9 (37 reviews)

Free until 23 May 2013

Flying Soup is the whacked-out story of how a simple video recording turned into an accidental empire, all courtesy of a flying can of tomato soup. When bicyclist and computer nerd Christian Trist and his fellow techno-geek roomies decide they've had enough of the rudeness that cyclists and others encounter on the road, Christian’s near-miss with a can of soup flung from a car window starts the colorful and creative trio of friends off on a mission of revenge – and profit. As their dot.com venture, Flying Soup, takes off to record popularity, they find themselves embattled by religious zealots, extremist politicians, gun-toting good 'ole boys and more, with surprising and often hilarious results.

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Orangeberry Free Alert - Cold Open by Greg Clarkin

Cold Open - Greg Clarkin

Amazon Kindle US

Amazon Kindle UK

Genre - Mystery

Rating - PG13

4.0 (92 reviews)

Free until 22 May 2013

When the nation’s number one cable news anchor, turns up floating in the East River, the cops label it a suicide. But his gorgeous widow is convinced he was killed and carries a secret that proves it.
Now she has Sam North believing it. The story-hungry TV reporter starts nosing around and discovers what Jack Steele found out the hard way...asking questions can get you disturbing answers, maybe even killed.

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Orangeberry Book of the Day - Violent Season by Maj. Ray Gleason Ph.D.

Chapter One: “The Bay, Part 1”

The boy sat on a sandy bluff overlooking a broad bay on the Hudson River. To his right, greenish-brown translucent waves broke on a rocky breakwater below the open, stark plain where the New York Central railroad yards hissed and steamed. Across the bay to the north, buildings poked out of rocky, wooded headlands like broken teeth marking the village of Groton-on-Hudson. Over his left shoulder, the north side of a wooded peninsula reached out into the river like an embracing arm curving back into the bay which it created. To the west, the blue-grey hills of the river’s western shore shimmered as the cool river currents mingled with the sweltering airs of a New York August.

The boy sat well back, out of sight, in the shade of one of the many red maples that grew along the bluffs looking down on the river. He nestled on top of a carpet of the dead, brown leaves, remnants of departed summers. The shrill tones of summer cicadas were almost deafening as he inhaled the fragrances of decaying leaves, damp earth and moss. Behind him, a patch of dense forest separated the river from a collection of bungalows on a hill known as Groton Point Park, where the boy spent his summers with his grandmother.

The woods were a place of magic. When the boy entered them, he was transported back to the forests of the Northern Adirondacks in the lands of the mighty Iroquois confederation. His T-shirt became a buckskin blouse, his dungarees fringed leather trousers, his Hi-Top sneakers moccasins. A long stick became a rifled musket, short sticks, a hunting knife and a tomahawk. Chingachgook, the boy’s Mohegan brother, had shown him all the secret paths of the forest, paths invisible to the eyes of white men, in order to reach unseen the “place of watching” overlooking Lake Champlain near the English fort at Crown Point, where the he now rested.

The boy had left the settlement along a well-traveled path through the forest from the bungalows to the village meeting house where the settlers had their Saturday night parties and showed movies every Tuesday. But, instead of continuing along this path, he turned had off it as it dipped into a valley onto an invisible deer path that followed the valley floor to the west. This was the most dangerous part of the journey, Chingachgook had warned him, because the boy’s movements could be seen from the meeting-house path. There were some in the settlement who would reveal these secret paths to the French for gold or furs. Or worse, the Iroquois, who only pretended to be friendly to the settlers, would discover his movements and ambush him in the lower valley.

After a quarter mile, the valley turned to the north and the boy was deep among the trees safe from detection. From there, the valley descended toward the lake. Here, the walls of the valley pressed closely around the path and the trees blocked the sun. At the bottom of the valley, where the path brushed along the edge of the foul-smelling swamp of oil from the railroad yards, it branched in three directions.

Straight ahead, the path led to a sandy beach along the lake. There, a mad, white-bearded hermit lived in a wooden shack. Chingachgook had told the boy to avoid this man. The Manitou spoke to him. This was dangerous. But, should the French and their Algonquin allies come down the lake to attack the settlement, this is the path they would use. The thick trees and the steep hills surrounding the path would give the boy and Chingachgook a place to hold off the French until the women and children of the settlement could reach the stockade and the militia could be mustered to counter attack and push the French back into the lake.

Another path led east into a hidden, wooded valley. Chingachgook had told the boy that this valley was sacred to the Iroquois and he should avoid it. Here the Iroquois took their captives and offered their blood to their savage gods. Once he and Chingachgook had to raid the valley to rescue Alice and Cora, the daughters of the English Colonel at the fort. While they were in the secret valley, Chingachgook had shown the him the flat stone where the Iroquois beheaded their captives. The stone was stained black and brown with the blood of hundreds of unfortunate victims. After a desperate fight, they were able to bring the girls out before the Iroquois could sacrifice them.

To the west, a path climbed up and over a sandy, wooded bluff to the place of watching, where the boy now sat, his musket across his legs, peering intently across the waters to the north for any sign of war canoes. If the French appeared, the boy would have time to reach the place of ambush where he would rendezvous with his Mohegan brother, Chingachgook. There they would wait, concealed in the forest, until the French moved up the path from the beach into their trap.

As the boy sat under the maples, he remembered that it was Friday, the day his uncle and aunt came up from the city. He looked forward to this day all week. Without thinking, he checked the cuffs of his dungarees for sand. His aunt was a bit fussy at times. She worried too much about dirt in ears, dirt under fingernails, washed hands and face. But, to the boy, she was a glamorous presence—tall, red haired, stylish and smart. She only drank cocktails and smoked only while seated like the pictures of stylish, society ladies in Life magazine. She was Claudette Colbert to his uncle’s Clark Gable, Nora to his Nick. If she were to fall into the hands of the Iroquois (red-haired women were powerful magic) he would gladly risk the hidden valley single-handed to bring her out.

But that would never happen. Even the savage Iroquois feared his uncle. He was a New York City plain-clothes policemen, a detective who hunted the most clever criminals in the city’s most dangerous areas. Even arch-criminals like Flat Top and the Joker feared the boy’s uncle. He was as tall and square-jawed as Dick Tracy, with piercing blue eyes that saw through every trick a criminal could think of. Most of the time, he wore a dark overcoat and a snap-brimmed fedora on the job. But, sometimes he wore his police uniform, a navy blue overcoat with two rows of bright gold buttons, a shiny, square, silver badge, highly-polished black shoes with rubber soles and his night-stick and service revolver strapped to his hip. To the boy, his uncle had the class of Nick Charles, was as relentless as Phillip Marlowe, and was as clever as Boston Blackie. When he walked a beat in the city, the good people welcomed him and the criminals fled.

The boy especially looked forward to those Saturday mornings when his uncle drove him into the village the settlers called Harlin for his haircut. He got to sit in the front seat of his uncle’s big, green DeSoto. His uncle called his car the “Green Hornet.” It had a police radio in the dashboard and a big searchlight next to the driver’s window, which the boy knew his uncle used to search out evil throughout the night on the tough city streets.

They would drive together across the rickety, black trestle over the New York Central yards connecting the settlement to the village. His uncle drove with the windows down, his pipe in his mouth, singing “Red Sails in the Sunset,” stopping only to point out the tower where the railroad stored its coal for the steam engines that ran upstate, and the roundhouse where the steam engines were repaired. Sometimes, a steam engine passed under the trestle as they drove, engulfing the Green Hornet in smoke and noise. That used to frighten the boy, but Chingachgook, his Mohegan brother, had told him never to show fear in front of another warrior. And, he knew that he could show no fear in front of his uncle so he would be thought worthy of joining him some day on the police force to fight evil in the city.

The boy knew he had to be careful around his uncle. Last summer, before he had proven his courage fighting the French and the Iroquois with Chingachgook, he had gone to the Tuesday night movies at the meeting house in the settlement. That night they showed a monster movie about a reptile-man with big claws, who lived in the murk of a swampy lake, and crept out at night to kill people who strayed too close to his lair.

One day, the monster kidnapped the movie’s beautiful heroine. The boy wasn’t sure why, but he had seen enough monster movies to understand that this was what evil monsters sometimes did. Of course, the hero had to rescue her. He had a terrible fight with the monster under water and finally killed him with a spear gun. The heroine, who had spent most of her captivity fainting and screaming, seemed strangely sad when the monster died. The boy didn’t understand this, but he knew that this was the way heroines in monster movies sometimes behaved.

That night, after the movie, he had to walk through the dark woods to his Grandmother’s bungalow. Although he saw the monster get killed in the movie, he wasn’t sure that was the end of it. And, with the woods, the river and the swamps all around, the settlement was the perfect place for a swamp monster to hide. Didn’t his grandmother always warn him and his older cousin, Janey, not to go out at night because, when criminals escaped from the prison down in Ossining, they would hide in these woods?

When he managed to get home without running into any monsters, he quickly assessed the weaknesses of his grandmother’s bungalow against swamp monsters. The boy decided that a swamp monster wouldn’t just try to walk through the door. They were much too cunning for that. He’d somehow get into the house with the water. He examined the kitchen and decided the monster couldn’t get in through there. The faucets and drains were much too narrow. Then the boy remembered the shower that his uncle and father had installed in the bathroom. It drained directly under the house! Worse yet, in order to pee, the boy had to turn his back to the shower whose insides were hidden by a vinyl curtain. So, all the swamp monster had to do was, wait until dark, creep into the house through the shower drain, and wait for the boy. He’d be a sitting duck!

So, he developed a plan to foil the swamp monster. At night, when he had to use the bathroom, he’d first turn on the porch light, then he’d inspect the bathroom from a safe distance. If it seemed clear, he’d approach. But, before entering, he’d snake his hand in through the door and flip on the bathroom light. He’d then check to make sure there were no monsters visible in the bathroom. Only then would he go in. Then, very carefully, he’d pull back the shower curtain a bit to make sure the shower stall contained no lurking monsters. Only then would he turn his back to the shower stall, march up to the toilet and pee.

This ritual served the him well for most of the summer, until one night his uncle, who had been watching this little routine for a couple of weeks, said to him, “So, I guess you’re not going to be a cop when you grow up?”

“Whatta you mean, Unc,” the boy responded, “I still want to be a cop!”

“Well,” his uncle replied, “You can’t be a cop if you’re scared of the dark. Cops have to search dark buildings for dangerous criminals with nothing more than a flashlight and a nightstick. But, you can’t get to the bathroom without turning on every light in the house. Then, you won’t even go in until you’ve checked in the shower. What’re you afraid of in the shower? A monster? Can’t be a cop if you’re afraid of the dark or monsters.”

Now the boy knew his uncle was watching him when he went to the bathroom, watching and testing his courage to be a New York City cop. So now he had to march boldly across the porch in the dark. He had to enter the bathroom before he turned on the light. And, he must never be caught checking out the shower before he went about his business. Which, worked out well for a couple of days until his uncle hid in the shower and, as soon as the boy turned his back, flung open the curtain and snarled exactly like a hungry swamp monster.

Even his aunt would have thought it funny, had the boy not peed all over the bathroom.

But now the boy was a warrior in his own right. With his Mohegan brother, Chingachgook, he had fought the wily French from Canada. He had defeated the fierce Iroquois. He wasn’t even afraid to go into the woods by himself when Chingachgook was off on the hunt. In fact, in a strange way, the boy felt comforted surrounded by the wooded hills. It was his secret place. A magical place. His place.

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Genre – Literary / Historical Fiction

Rating – PG13

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Orangeberry Book of the Day - Running Against Traffic by Gaelen VanDenbergh

I. To the Lake

Chapter 1

When Paige told me all about it, it was well over a year since the shit had hit her fan, but those solemn brown eyes don’t lie, and she had forgotten nothing. Still, she asked “You do believe me, don’t you Chloe?”

I assured her I did. “That would happen to you, Paige. It should.”

She nodded. “Thank you,” she said. She tucked her dark hair behind her ears and smiled a smile of one peaking around a corner at something enticing. She looked past me, into space. Around the corner. Into the new room.

On a sweltering Saturday in June, David Davenport announced to his wife Paige that he had purchased a vacation home for them in Wells Lake, a town in northern Pennsylvania that Paige had never heard of. Philadelphia had been hit by an early heat wave, but they had left their air-conditioned condo on Rittenhouse Square to sip sauvignon blanc at a wrought iron table outside Café Rouge. The table teetered every time Paige set down her glass, and she was so absorbed by it tilting her way, and then David’s way, and then her way again, as if switching loyalties, that she barely heard what he said about taking her to see the house the following weekend. She wiped cold condensation from her water glass onto her napkin and held the icy glass up to her face, pressing it to each cheek. “What are we talking about?” she murmured, not looking up. She set her glass down and fingered around the table for something to tuck under the table leg.

“…About a four hour drive from here, Tioga County,” David was saying when she finally gave up her search and looked up at him. He was wearing a yellow polo shirt, which was not his color. The collar was neatly pressed, and his Ray Bans rested on top of his full, sandy brown hair that he liked to gel and tousle. Women found him handsome. Over the course of their ten year relationship, Paige had watched them flock and twitter. He was like a colt, Solid, broad in the chest for his height, always tossing his head and chewing the bit. But now she could barely hear him. He was talking into the stifling breeze and looking through her. “We’ll leave around noon on Friday to miss the weekend traffic.”

Paige squinted through her sunglasses. “There’s traffic headed that way?” she asked, words sticking in the thick air around her. “We’ll see. I have to check my calendar. I’m not sure what’s going on next weekend.” She picked through her purse for her phone, mentally thumbing through potential escape plans. She was certain that she could figure out some excuse for not going. If David needed a weekend getaway to go fishing or bushwhacking, or to attend a tractor pull, or whatever one did in places like that, he could go by himself. Or, god forbid, if he felt the two of them needed a romantic pick-me-up or a literal roll in the hay, she was absolutely not going. Not that he had even vaguely attempted a single romantic gesture in ages. Not that she wanted him to. Not that. No.

He stared at her across the table, expressionless, but she felt a sudden cool ripple of trepidation run through her blood. David was never still. He picked up his water glass and took a swig from it, catching an ice cube and chewing it crudely in his whitened teeth. “We’re going,” he said, practically dropping the glass back down, forefinger and thumb splayed in the air for a moment longer. “You have nothing else to do.” Then he smiled, forced and tight. Paige could do nothing but nod in terse agreement. Damn, she thought. Damn.

The waitress approached their table and inquired if they had looked at the menu but neither of them was hungry. She left them the check for the drinks, which they sat and sipped for a while longer, silent, watching the city stream by.

The journey to Wells Lake was long and tedious. Heavy quiet mixed with carsickness. Paige settled back into the leather seats of David’s Lexus SUV, their weekend bags carelessly packed and tossed in the back. It was only two days, she reminded herself, but why did he have to buy a vacation house there, of all places. Why not a beach house in Brigantine or Margate, even though she loathed the Shore, or simply somewhere that she had seen and agreed to beforehand. She was extremely annoyed with David, and she was not about to put on a cheerful face and make the weekend pleasant for him. He was not inclined to chat either, and so they drove over highways, then through towns steadily dwindling in size and civilization, just your average acrimonious married couple, getting away from it all. The sun shone on her bare legs through the sun roof. She stretched them out and leaned her head against the leather head rest, studying the passing scenery.

The trip stretched on, leading them over highways flanked by stubborn-looking trees and hills, and roads that rolled out through vast farm land of weather-beaten barns and mud-spattered grazing cows. The smell of manure hung in the air. They crossed bridges, and wound through flat towns with tiny churches and diners, towns that seemed to end as quickly as they began. And yet, the great open sky above and the unfamiliar, unwieldy land stretching before and behind them made Paige’s big city home seem like something miniature, encased in a snow globe. It was wild and unsettling.

Welcome to Wells Lake, white lettering on a pine green sign declared, as David pulled into a small gas station on the edge of another miserable little town that appeared at first glance to be all on one road, straight ahead of them. She expected a few blocks up, where she could only glimpse a wall of forest, there was a sign that read “Come again, if you’re sure you want to.”

David filled the tank and Paige walked up to the small shop attached to the service station. She spotted a handful of town brochures on the rack by the register that held newspapers, and a few tabloids. She perused one of the brochures, which was more like a single-sided bookmark. It explained that Wells Lake, named for an original settler, had in the early twentieth century been a trade center for a large surrounding area, and had been the site of several mills, including a saw mill, a flour mill, and a milk-condensing plant. Now, Paige discovered as she read on, the town boasted no such exciting amenities. From what she could see, as she stepped outside and squinted up the main road, it even lacked any sort of quaint village charm. No cobblestones, no flower baskets hanging from old fashioned street lamps, no visible evidence of a bed and breakfast, or antique shops. There appeared to be only two traffic lights on the entire stretch of road, dangling from black wires, one swaying along side a pair of shoes, tied together and hanging from their laces.

Paige looked back down at the bookmark. The remainder of the story of Wells Lake was summed up in one line, offering nearby fishing, free camp grounds and hiking trails in the nearby wooded park land. There was a small sketch under the blurb of a deer and a few trees, and some random black dots that she assumed represented ticks.

Paige jumped as David honked the horn. She stuffed the brochure into her purse and hurried back to the car.

David steered them off of the main strip. The trees and shrubbery lining the narrow road that he sped along – what the hell was his hurry? - appeared to be a jungle of weeds and bramble. Paige nervously dabbed sunscreen onto her fingertips from a tube and patted it onto her cheeks and nose.

David drove around another bend and crunched up a rutted dirt and pebble driveway leading to a dilapidated house with a sagging front porch and peeling lime-green shutters. The siding looked like it might have been white at one time, but was now the color of dingy mop-water.

“Gee, David, couldn’t you have had it renovated before we came out here?” Paige asked. She leaned her head back wearily. “What were you thinking? This place is clearly unsalvageable. Did you even have it inspected?”

David sprang out of the SUV and slammed his door. Paige sighed and stepped carefully out her side, wary of where she set her shoes down. She shaded her eyes with one hand, taking a longer look at the house. God, it was terrible. She would have to convince David to sell it. She certainly was not coming back for any more weekend getaways here. But who would buy this mess? Finally she turned toward him, and nearly tripped over her bag which was on the ground beside her. David was standing by the front of the car, arms folded across his chest.

“What’s the matter with you? Where’s your suitcase?” Paige snapped with fresh annoyance. “We might as well go in. It’s too hot to stand around out here all day.”

“I’m not staying,” he said.

“What? What do you mean?” Paige asked, feeling her heart begin to jump against her rib cage.

“You’re staying. I’m going home. This,” he tossed a set of keys onto her suitcase, “is your home now. There is a bank card in your purse. Your account is with the local branch on Cherry Street. I had the utilities turned on, and I arranged for some supplies to be stocked in. That should get you started. Good luck, and goodbye.”

Paige felt light headed and there was a faint ringing in her ears. She reached for the passenger-side car door handle and grasped it to steady herself. David was already climbing back in on his side. He snapped on his seatbelt and powered down the passenger window. In that instant, she saw a man she barely knew. He seemed to be wearing a mask of himself. “I’ll send you the rest of your clothes and things,” he said. “We’re through. Feel free to see other men.”

“You feel free to see other men, too,” Paige squeaked. But she was drowned out by the revved engine as the Lexus lurched backward, forcing her to yank back her hand. The car bumped down the driveway, jerked into forward and sped around the bend and out of sight.

Driveway dust hung around her in a cloud, suspended in the stagnant summer air as if time had slowed to a near standstill. A couple of bees circled lazily nearby and she could hear the faint buzzing. The sun burned into the top of her head. She blinked up at it like a bewildered bird pushed from its nest. Then she dropped to the hard, dry ground and sat watching the dust shimmering above the road where her husband’s truck had disappeared. The Lexus was gone, but she stared at that empty road for a long time.

Why was this happening? Hadn’t there been happier times? A gray memory or two to make them reconsider the end? She focused on drawing in air and pushing it back out, until she could hear nothing else. The screaming inside her head ceased. Reality buzzed off with the bees, and she suddenly laughed out loud. Of course, this is one of David’s hijinks, she thought, desperately craning her neck and listening for the car, which would surely come roaring back around the bend at any moment. She had learned a long time ago that in a refreshing sort of way, David loved these tricky moves. He possessed a debonair devil-may-care attitude that Paige had both admired and envied, early into their courtship. David loved nothing more than to buck rules and manipulate systems, especially when no one was the wiser. It became clear later that the last thing David wanted to do was change the world or bring down the corrupt. He was just a tricky rich child, and his antics made him feel taller. Paige was an extension of his outward appearance, and they could laugh at the world together in private, but in public he expected her to keep the secret, and dress, speak and act appropriately.

This was a simple role for Paige. She was a seasoned actress in the world. She played her role expertly. For a while.

The stream of thoughts slowed to a trickle and then a drip. It was dusk when Paige began to fade back from her stupor. She was seated cross-legged on the sparse grass of what was now her lawn – oh god, oh god, this is my lawn, it was all rushing at her, images flashing through her mind, scenes and conversations leading up to this point. Teetering table, David staring her down, long, hot drive, gas station, David driving away. Paige clapped her hands over her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. As her mind sank into bleak quiet, she dropped her hands to her knees and focused on them until she was left with only a slow, pulsing ache in her temples.

Her gaze shifted to the house keys on her suitcase beside her. She would have to go inside. Eerie evening life was stirring around her. A twig snapped in one corner of the yard, as from another corner came the deep croak of what could only be a giant, mutant frog, answered by another in the shadows under the porch. Oh hell, was the house built on a swamp? She hugged her knees. They were gathering. Advancing. The shriek of hundreds of crickets pierced the evening air, and a mosquito the size of a tarantula floated an inch from her face. Heart pounding, Paige swung into action, leaping to her feet and scrambling across the yard and up onto the porch, her suitcase bumping behind her, breaking a few spindles in the porch railing as she pulled it up the steps.

With jangly fingers she reached to jam the key into the lock, and saw with fresh horror that the front door was already slightly ajar. Her fear quickly gave way to adrenaline, and in a fit of maniacal bravado, she raised a kitten-heeled sandal and gave the door a round-house kick with all the strength she had. Maybe whatever was inside would be frightened and jump out a back window. The door banged open with such force that the doorknob embedded in the wall inside and stuck there. Paige hurled her suitcase into the front room, wrenched the door free of the wall, and pushed it shut. There was no lock except for the keyhole, and to her deep dismay the key kept turning in it, round and round, catching on nothing.

Gingerly flicking on an uncovered switch in the wall, Paige looked around in the dim light and spotted a chair against the wall. She dragged it over and propped it under the doorknob. She had seen that done in movies. It always worked. Next she had to find and turn on every other light in the house and, canister of Mace in hand, she would check through every room for squatters, human or otherwise.

Paige looked around the archaic living room, furnished only with a threadbare sofa and armchair in lurid pink floral. The room contained no carpet, no coffee table, no high-definition flat-screened television, just a milk crate in front of the sofa that held a small, old-fashioned box TV, attached to a black cable that ran across the floor and into the wall. In the corner was an iron wood stove. The living room spilled into what she could only guess was a dining room, because it was completely bare. Well, that’s a shame, she thought. So much for dinner parties. The wood floors were dinged and scuffed, dotted with small, splintery holes.

Beyond the dining room was a square, eat-in kitchen, the design of which appeared to be circa 1960s, because everyone involved had clearly been on quite the acid trip. The cabinets were a disturbing sunshine yellow, and every cabinet door was hung on a crooked angle. She opened the refrigerator and found bottled water, a can of ground coffee, a carton of milk and a few other food items that David must have had stocked in. How kind of him, she thought, gnashing her teeth. She grabbed one of the bottles of water and turned to face the ugliest kitchen table she had ever seen. It was oval, with four brown chairs surrounding it. Its prior owner had painted it nearly the same vile yellow as the kitchen cabinets, only brighter, making its ugliness even more startling. Its surface was made uneven by dried globs of paint and dips and dents under the paint. The splintered edges had been painted over rather than sanded. Paige shuddered and looked past it to a kitchen door, which mercifully had a key in the lock that worked when she tried it. She peeked behind a dusty gingham ruffle covering the door’s half-moon window but it had grown too dark to see anything outside.

Her adrenaline supply was drained, and she suddenly felt deflated and weak. If there is anything scary in this house, it can have me, she thought. Leaving her suitcase where she had dropped it by the front door, she crept up the creaky stairs off of the living room and skulked through three small bedrooms and a dollhouse-sized bathroom, leaving lights on everywhere she went for some small comfort. The bedrooms were sparsely furnished, two with single beds and one with a queen sized bed, all made up with linens and blankets. Whoever had prepared the house for human occupants had assumed a family was coming.

Paige decided numbly that she would sleep in the room with the largest bed, and in a final flailing safety gesture, she peeked under the bed, and then yanked open the closet door to see what was living inside. The door promptly broke off of its one rusted hinge and banged to the floor. Paige looked down at it for a moment, then walked around it and fell into the bed.

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Genre – Contemporary Fiction

Rating – PG13

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Orangeberry Free Alert - Maternal Harbor by Marie F. Martin

Maternal Harbor - Marie F. Martin

Amazon Kindle US

Amazon Kindle UK

Genre - Suspense, Thriller

Rating - PG

4.2 (125 reviews)

Free until 20 May 2013

Teagan O’Riley was pregnant and alone when she met three single mothers at an OB clinic. A few weeks later, two of them are dead and the third is close on Teagan’s heels, intent on a campaign of twisted murder and insanity. Teagan cannot risk entrusting the three infants to the police with her finger prints all over one crime scene and her foot print smeared into blood at another. She flees with the babies to a wilderness cabin belonging to her lost love’s grandmother, but is even this remote location safe?

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Orangeberry Book of the Day - The Sin of Forgiveness by Edward F. Mrkvicka, Jr.

The Importance of Context

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This book does not ask you to believe something “new,” but rather something old and true. Society as a whole, over the centuries, and especially in the last 50 years, has taken forgiveness to mean something not intended by the Bible. While we are to forgive, we are to do so as God directs, not as Dr. Phil and even some clergy suggest.

This treatise on the subject of forgiveness is not my opinion, but rather the result of a lifetime of Bible study and Bible-based counseling. There is probably no bigger mistake made by God-fearing Christians than not reading and understanding God’s Holy Word in context. I know I have made such error on numerous occasions, notwithstanding the altruistic nature of my biblical inquiries. It is just so easy to do, mainly because God’s Word is so direct and uncompromising. Consequently, when we read a verse in Scripture we immediately race to whatever seemingly obvious conclusion we glean based on the verse’s intent and the subject matter contained therein.

And yet there are many of us who have a misunderstanding about this or that spiritually, which caused me to try and learn why people of good faith could often come to what seemed to be obviously erroneous conclusions about God’s intent. The answer is biblical context. Context means (1) the text surrounding a word or passage: the words, phrases, or passages that come before and/or after a particular word or passage in a speech or text and help explain its full meaning, and (2) surrounding conditions: the circumstances or events that form the environment within which something exists or takes place. The word is taken from the Latin word contextus, meaning connected or to weave together. Put more clearly, context is the equivalent of a tapestry. It’s not until every single piece of cloth is woven together that we can see the picture the artists intended to paint. Without the completeness of their effort, all we would see is a pile of disconnected nothingness that may or may not lead us to the truth. The Bible is much the same. A verse of Gospel may stand by itself, but more than likely it does not. It usually has other text that fleshes out the subject and explain the entire picture. The matter of context is vital whenever we are seeking biblical answers to problems or questions we are faced with. Make no mistake from the above; God does not hide from us. He has gone out of His way to make His Word easily accessible. So what is the problem? Unfortunately, we are often in a hurry, or we’re lazy. And while being in a hurry and/or being lazy puts us at the both far ends of the spectrum, the result is always the same, we only get part of the solution or come to one that has little resemblance to God’s actual intent.

My favorite analogy in this instance is that of a father trying to assemble a birthday present for one of his children. Let’s say it is the child’s first 2-wheeler. As all fathers know, the instructions will almost always invariably start by stating “You’ll need a pair of pliers and a screwdriver.” Would any of us, after reading the instructions no further than step #1, assume we’re done after finding the pliers and screwdriver, and that the bicycle is complete? Of course not. It would be patently obvious that step #1 was just that, step #1, and we’d have to complete the remaining steps before the job was complete. Looking for answers in the Bible is much the same. We cannot just read one verse (step #1) and assume we’re done, because we’re not. It is essential to prove this point in order to show how this concept pertains to forgiveness. To do that, I want to review a prominent biblical topic that hopefully will make clear how we can come to the wrong conclusion by making doctrine out of one verse of Scripture that was meant to be but a portion of the entire picture. We’re going to look at “honoring our father and mother” by reviewing the generally accepted meaning of the Fifth Commandment, and then show how our understanding changes when we review the topic in context. In the process, I hope to give you a new perspective on Bible study, one that will expand your vision and give you a desire to know God’s truth regardless of how long it takes, or how much effort is required. From personal experience, I can share this; once given a contextual perspective, you will read the Bible in a whole new light. You will be excited, because, perhaps for the first time, you will see and understand the truth as never before. When you know the truth, you are, in fact, free. No longer will anyone, including those doing Satan’s bidding, be able to lead you astray.

The Bible says we are to: Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you. (Exodus 20:12) There are many, based on that verse alone, who believe we are to honor our parents no matter what they say or do. Yet, Jesus said,

Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his [own] household.

—Matthew 10:34-36

But how can we honor our parents when our Savior tells us He came to separate us from the very people should they stand against Him? Is this an irresolvable contradiction? Allow me to take this one step further to make the point. Are children of God to honor their earthly parents even if they are committing adultery? Ephesians 5:11 states, And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose [them]. 2 Thessalonians 3:6 says, But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us. In 2 Corinthians 6:14 we are told, Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? Lastly, although there are other references, in 1 Corinthians 5:11 we read, But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or convetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner – not even to eat with such a person.

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Genre – Christian Life

Rating – G

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Orangeberry Book Tours – Sleeper’s Run by Henry Mosquera

• Winner of the 2012 IndieReader Discovery Awards for best mystery/thriller
• Winner of the 2011 Reader Views Reviewers Choice Awards for Best South American Novel
• 2012 ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Award finalist

War on Terror veteran, Eric Caine, is found wandering the streets of Miami with no memory of the car accident that left him there. Alone and suffering from PTSD, Eric is on a one-way road to self-destruction. Then a chance meeting at a bar begins a series of events that helps Eric start anew. When his new job relocates him to Venezuela-the land of his childhood-things, however, take an ominous turn as a catastrophic event threatens the stability of the country. Now Eric must escape an elite team of CIA assassins as he tries to uncover an international conspiracy in which nothing is what it seems.

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Genre – Political Thriller

Rating – R

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