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Veronica Jorge: October Featured Author

October 1, 2021 by Veronica Jorge in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Featured Author of the Month tagged as Featured author, Reviewed by Veronica Jorge, Veronica Jorge, Write from the heart

Manager, Educator, and former High School Social Studies teacher, Veronica credits her love of history to the potpourri of cultures that make up her own life and to her upbringing in diverse Brooklyn, New York.

Her Work in Progress is a Young Adult Novel based on a search into her ethnic roots that explores identity, belonging, and self-discovery. Her genres of choice are historical fiction, where she always makes new discoveries, literary works because she loves beautiful writing, and children’s picture books because there are so many wonderful worlds yet to be imagined and visited.

She currently resides in Macungie, PA., but she’s still a Brooklyn girl at heart. How sweet it is!

Veronica’s story “Fiona Malone’s Fesh,” is featured in the Fall 2021 Issue of Bethlehem Writers Roundtable.

In addition to her fiction, she has a monthly column, Write from the Heart, here on A Slice of Orange where she writes about writing, life and does book reviews.

Connect with her on Facebook @VeronicaJorgeauthor

Books Reviewed by Veronica

BLACK FOOD: STORIES, ART & RECIPES FROM ACROSS THE AFRICAN DIASPORA

INCIDENT AT SAN MIGUEL

REFUGEE

THE WITCH WHISPERER

UPROOTED: THE JAPANESE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE DURING WORLD WAR II

THE ORPHANS OF BERLIN

DISTANT RELATIONS

FIVE BELLES TOO MANY

THE ONLY ROAD

THE LAST GOODNIGHT

MIGUEL’S BRAVE KNIGHT

FOUR CUTS TOO MANY

FORGIVING MARIELA CAMACHO

FORGIVING STEPHEN REDMOND

FORGIVING MAXIMO ROTHMAN

MY FRIEND JACKSON

THREE TREATS TOO MANY

SERIOUSLY, MOM, YOU DIDN’T KNOW?

SECRET RELATIONS

TWO BITES TOO MANY

#PLEASE SAY YES (#HermosafortheHolidays Book 1)

ONE TASTE TOO MANY

THE ALLIANCE

A DRAKENFALL CHRISTMAS

THE RELUCTANT GROOM AND OTHER HISTORICAL STORIES

THE DAY BAILEY DEVLIN PICKED UP A PENNY

THE SCRIBE OF SIENA

THE DAY BAILEY DEVLIN’S HOROSCOPE CAME TRUE

SEVERED RELATIONS

FOREIGN RELATIONS

WHEN PLANS GO AWRY

A BIRD WILL SOAR

NEMESIS AND THE SWAN

FLORES AND MISS PAULA

I AM FLAWSOME

LA NOCHE BEFORE THREE KINGS DAY

A SKY FULL OF SONG

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Zither! Book Tour

September 23, 2021 by marianne h donley in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Rabt Book Tours tagged as #RABTBookTours, Jeffrey Hanlon, mystery, Zither!

Metafiction/Humor/Mystery

Date Published: April 20th, 2021

Publisher: Zither Studios

A nutty religious cult abducts a herd of prime gazebos (huh?) and it’s up to bumbling P.I. Mars Candiotti to rescue them. Mars, aspiring author, chronicles his quest in Jeffrey Hanlon’s comic mystery Zither.

Guided by his magically prescient IHOP waitress, Mars strives to mitigate the shocking global consequences of the gazebo heist, even though he has no idea what the word mitigate means. Mars has five Important clues with which to solve his confounding mystery: Butterscotch, John Travolta, Trombones Venetian Blinds, and Wind Chimes.

As Zither swallows its own tale, Mars finds it increasingly tricky to distinguish between real people and his rambunctious fictional characters. Zither becomes the romper room where his reality meets fantasy – and get frisky with each other.

Using his (odd) clues, Mars’ international odyssey leads to an explosive conclusion in Panama. TVs around the world tune in to watch live coverage of “Carnage in the Canal”.

Amid the lunatic havoc that is Zither there is (of course!) an epic love story as Mars meets Marian, the brainy librarian he had dreamed of. Marian says his books are “slapstick existentialism with subjective reality couched in parable”. (This is news to Mars). But is Marian real?

Is any of it real?

“Hanlon’s humor shines bright and will leave fans of such madness wanting more.” Publishers Weekly

“This zany, rollicking mystery adventure is as compelling as it is hilarious.” Independent Book Review

Nominated for the prestigious Audie Award, Best Fiction 2021

About the Author

I was born in a Southern California beach town.

My family moved to Northwest Oregon when I was 7. Or maybe when I was 8.

Had we stayed in the Beach Boys town, and knowing myself as I do now, I suspect I would have grown long hair, started a rock band, and been heavily into drugs. The rock band would probably have been pretty good. The rest of it, not so much. I’d likely have joined the ranks of those like Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin.

We moved to a mountaintop. The last five miles to get there were gravel. The final two miles were steep and to the end of the road.

That’s where we lived: the end of the road, 22 miles to the nearest town.

Our closest neighbor, about a mile down the road, was a hermit who lived in a shack. He had a goat. About once a month the goat would visit us. Then the hermit would show up to retrieve his goat. I think the goat liked us better than the hermit, which is why the goat kept showing up. Goats are funny animals. I think they aspire to be house pets.

And speaking of animals, we had cats. Lots and lots of cats. Because we were remote and at the end of the road, unkind people – and ‘unkind’ is the kindest description I can use here – would dump their unwanted cats on or near our property. The cats would find our house. We gave them Fancy Feast and our love, and in turn they loved us.

My childhood friends didn’t visit too often. That was at least partly because when they did show up my father would say something like this: “Great! We have a job that could use an extra hand. Won’t take more than five minutes.” Well, that five minutes usually turned into an hour or two – volunteer labor! – and that friend would seldom visit again.

So my favorite childhood playmate was a 2000 pound Hereford bull, a big boy with horns spanning three feet. I’d go out in the pasture and the bull would strike a pose not unlike what you’ve seen in the movies where the bull was ready to charge, head down, eyeing me. But he wasn’t going to charge me. He just wanted his forehead scratched. And so I would scratch his forehead. He liked that, shaking his head every so often to show his approval. Then we’d elevate to a game that the bull might have called ‘Let’s see how far we can toss this little kid!’ and I’d place my right hip against his massive head and he’d toss me into the air like a sack of flour. Over and over, farther and farther, higher and higher. I could have done that for hours – I can fly! – but after a few tosses the bull would grow bored with the game and wander off. Probably to chase some cute heifers.

The nearest library was 30 miles away, and we ventured there often. It was a majestic old building, and the Grand Room had books on all four walls with reading chairs in the center. But that was not where I wanted to be. I figured all those books were popular books or books I was supposed to read. I wanted something different, so I would enter the room with a small sign that said ‘Stacks’. It was row after narrow row after row of books, floor to ceiling, dimly lit, dusty. It was like entering a cave. Filled with treasures!

It was in those Stacks that I discovered the likes of Kerouac and Heller and Huxley and Fowles and Steinbeck and Ellison and Bradbury and Hemingway and many many others.

As Stephen King said, “Books are a uniquely portable magic.”

And those, each in their own way, was the inspiration for the first book I wrote at the age of eight or nine: ‘Pond Scum’.

It was illustrated.

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Zither!

Jeffrey Hanlon

Excerpt

As nightfall approached, we prepared.

Pete disguised himself as management, putting on a nice Men’s Wearhouse suit with a bleeding turnip lapel pin.

I disguised myself as Britney Spears.

At the stroke of midnight, Pete and I left his house and headed for the St. Francis Yacht Club.

As contrived luck would have it, Benny Tisdale had left the cabin on his dumb boat unlocked.

In stealthy fashion, Pete and I went below.

“I’ll shine the flashlight and listen for footprints. You find the varnish,” Pete said.

It took no time at all to find Benny’s Man O’ War. Actually, it took a bit of time, but you know what I mean.

As Pete held the light, I donned my surgical gloves and placed Benny’s Man O’ War in my black op bag.

“Easy as taking candy from a drowning man,” Pete whispered.

I nodded.

Pete said, “It’s dark in here, Mars. If you’re going to nod, warn me so I can shine the flashlight on your head.”

“Okay, Pete. We’ll make that a new rule.”

As we prepared to exit in stealthy fashion, Pete shined his flashlight around the cabin, then said, “Mars, look at this big wooden crate.”

I looked at the wooden crate. It was big enough to hold a Barcalounger.

“I’ll bet it’s filled with ill-gotten booties,” Pete said. “Or a Barcalounger.”

He handed me the flashlight and pried open the crate’s lid with a crowbar.

It was not until some time after dark that we took courage to get up and throw the body overboard. It was then loathsome beyond expression, and so far decayed that, as Peters attempted to lift it, an entire leg came off in his grasp . . .

“Peters?” Pete said. “Do you mean Pete? Me? What body? What leg?”

“Sorry. That’s Edgar Allen Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.“

“What’s Poe doing in this chapter?”

I shined the flashlight on my shoulder and shrugged.

He snatched the light back, looked in the crate, and said, aghast, “We’ve gotta get outta here quick, Mars! This boat could blow any minute!”

I looked inside the big wooden crate.

Here is what was in there: hundreds, probably thousands, of Steven Seagal movies.

We’d be lucky to get out of there alive. Seagal movies have a tendency to bomb.

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Featured Author: H. O. Charles

September 21, 2021 by H. O. Charles in category Art, Cover, Design by H. O. Charles, Featured Author of the Month tagged as Best Selling author, fantasy, Featured author, HO Charles, The Fireblade Array

H. O. Charles Featured Author for September

H.O. Charles is an Amazon Top 100 Sci-Fi and Fantasy author of The Fireblade Array – a #2 best-selling series across Kindle, iBooks and B&N Nook in the Sci-Fi and Fantasy categories (#1 would just be showing off, right?) Okay, it did hit #1 in Epic Fantasy in all those places . . . BUT DON’T TELL ANYONE because no one likes a bragger.

Though born in Northern England, Charles now resides in a white house in Sussex and sounds like a southerner. Charles has spent many years at various academic institutions, and cut short writing a PhD in favour of writing about swords and sorcery instead. Hobbies include being in the sea, being by the sea and eating things that come out of the sea. Walks with a very naughty rough collie puppy also take up much of Charles’ time.

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Books by H. O. Charles

ASCENT OF ICE

SNOWLANDS

FALL OF BLAZE

VOICES OF BLAZE

BLAZED UNION

ANOMALY OF BLAZE

NATION OF BLAZE

CITY OF BLAZE

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Third Time’s the Harm Book Tour and Excerpt

September 16, 2021 by marianne h donley in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Rabt Book Tours tagged as #Mystery, #RABTBookTours, #ThirdTimestheHarm, Acorn Publishing, Deco Desk Mystery, Loran Holt

Deco Desk Mystery, Book 1

Paranormal Mystery

Date Published: August 24, 2021

Publisher: Acorn Publishing

Jamie Whitehall Olivian has received a mysterious letter from her Uncle James. She is named after him, but she has never seen, met, or heard him mentioned in any way.

Until now.

And he has died and left her his entire estate. But it seems Uncle James wants her to investigate a murder.

His, that is.

It also seems the estate is contingent upon her acceptance of this commission. Jamie wants no part of the investigation or of the estate. She gets along perfectly well, thank you very much, a fact she emphasizes to his lawyer, who just happens to be gorgeous, making it a little harder to say no.

Things take a strange turn when the victim himself asks her to reconsider. For reasons unknown, Uncle James has been unable to depart for the afterlife and is stuck in his Art Deco desk.

Jamie decides to take on the job of niece and sleuth, with no experience at either, and she and Uncle James set out to find the killer. They are aided by the lawyer and a not-as-gorgeous and slightly rumpled homicide detective whose interest seems to be more than just finding a murderer.

About The Author

If you live in Southern California, you’re either a writer or an actor, right? As Professor Emerita from California State University, Long Beach, Loran Holt chose the writing path. Third Times the Harm is one of the results of her efforts, the first book of a series featuring reluctant sleuth, Jamie Whitehall Olivian. Holt is also the author of Nightmasters: Doubles Talk, a sword-and-sorcery epic, published by Acorn, as well. You will find her non-fiction, film-and-fashion books under the name Lora Ann Sigler.

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Third Time’s the Harm
Excerpt

“Who’s up for dessert?” Rising, I changed the subject.

Dennis followed me, “I’ll help you bring it out.”

Not wanting to make a scene, I gave in and let him accompany me to the kitchen. I expected the third degree. What I didn’t expect was what I got.

With a smothered exclamation I couldn’t translate, Dennis wrapped both arms around me like an anaconda, and, pressing me to the back of the kitchen door, proceeded to kiss me like a man drowning. After a few seconds, I was the one drowning. I had somehow forgotten how to use my lungs, and very quickly my knees followed suit. If he hadn’t been leaning into me with the full Monty, I would have slithered to the floor like that same anaconda.

Finally regaining some sanity, and in desperate need of air, I pushed him slightly away. Only slightly, I’m not crazy–and did a little gasping.

He must have noticed what I had noticed; because his face pinked, and he moved in the dessert direction, clearing his throat. “I guess the plates should go in now.” Giving me a hint of dimple, he added, “Well, you did ask who was up for dessert.”

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