Death Opens a Window Book Tour & Guest Post
June 16, 2021 by marianne h donley in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Guest Posts, Rabt Book Tours tagged as Award Winning Author, crime fiction, Death Opens A Window, Mikel J Wilson, Mourning Dove Mysteries, mystery, RABTBookTours
Mourning Dove Mysteries, Book 2
Mystery, Crime Fiction, LGBTQ
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
Date Published: Oct 19, 2019
Purchase Links
BEST eBOOK SUSPENSE/THRILLER – New Apple Book Awards
BEST COVER OVERALL – New Apple Book Awards
The Mourning Dove Mysteries series includes:
3. A LIGHT TO KILL BY (coming August 3–preorder available)
Emory Rome is back in DEATH OPENS A WINDOW, Book 2 of the Mourning Dove Mysteries and the follow-up to the international bestseller MURDER ON THE LAKE OF FIRE.
As he struggles with the consequences of his last case, Emory must unravel the inexplicable death of a federal employee in a Knoxville high-rise. But while the reticent investigator is mired in a deep pool of suspects – from an old mountain witch to the powerful Tennessee Valley Authority – he misses a greater danger creeping from the shadows. The man in the ski mask returns to reveal himself, and the shocking crime of someone close is unearthed.
About the Author
Award-winning mystery author Mikel J. Wilson draws on his Southern roots for the international bestselling Mourning Dove Mysteries, a series of novels featuring bizarre murders in the Smoky Mountains region of Tennessee. Wilson adheres to a “no guns or knives” policy for the instigating murders in the series.
Contact Links
Purchase Links
10 Things You Didn’t Know About Mikel J. Wilson
- I was a licensed skydiver. I went to skydiving school in California City and would jump out of an Otter or Cessna over the Mojave Desert, which was especially stunning from 12,000 feet. I stopped jumping when I moved to San Diego.
- I insert subtle cameos into my books of characters from other, unrelated books I’ve written. For example, I have August Briar from Sedona: The Lost Vortex talking on the phone to Jeff Woodard from my Mourning Dove Mysteries series, and I have the other end of the conversation in Murder on the Lake of Fire, which came out six years later.
- I appeared as an extra on Will & Grace during the first season – in the “Alley Cats” episode, bowling beside the two leads.
- I’m a Southerner who has never drank even a sip of tea – sweet or unsweetened. I gave this same quirk to Emory Rome in my Mourning Dove Mysteries series.
- I spent two weeks alone camping and hiking in Sedona, seeking redirection for my life, and I came back with the inspiration for my first published book, Sedona: The Lost Vortex, which reinvigorated my passion for writing.
- When I was 19, I hopped on a Greyhound bus from Nashville to Los Angeles with $100 in my pocket and without knowing anyone there. I ended up homeless on the streets of Hollywood for a couple of months, but I persevered and have lived in Southern California ever since.
- In my 20s, I was a bartender at Studio One, which, at the time, was the largest LGBTQ+ nightclub in Los Angeles.
- I took Latin in high school and was president of the Latin Club, so I was especially thrilled to have a book-signing event in Rome for the launch of Murder on the Lake of Fire’s Italian version, Omicidio sul Lago di Fuoco.
- I proposed to my husband at Machu Picchu, finding out afterwards the particular spot is called the Palace of the Princess.
- I’m a UFO buff, and I was a huge fan of Chariots of the Gods when I was a kid. I finally met author Erich von Däniken at a “Contact in the Desert” event in 2019 and got a picture with him, which was majorly exciting for me.
Excerpt
Death Opens a Window
Mikel J. Wilson
At thirty-two stories, the Godfrey Tower jutted from the Knoxville skyline like a shark fin in the Tennessee River. Unseen through the frameless exterior walls of silvery, reflective glass, a young woman on the twenty-ninth floor sat with a phone held to her ear, pretending to be on a business call as she stared out the floor-to-ceiling window behind her desk. While her colleagues busied themselves on phones or computers at the dozens of cubicles throughout the large, open office space, Angie was not contributing to the organization’s productivity.
If she had looked down and across the street, the attractive brunette would’ve seen the unremarkable roof of the area’s next-tallest building fourteen floors below her. Instead she focused on the unobstructed view of downtown and the hazy, snow-peaked mountains beyond. She imagined herself hiking below the snowline with her new lumbersexual boyfriend and lying with him on a blanket before a tantric campfire. Angie could almost hear the crackling wood, until she realized the sound was coming from behind her.
She turned her chair around to see her boss tapping her desk with his pen. The hoary goat of a man stared her down, his pinched eyes straining to scold her through spotted glasses. “You’re having a rather one-sided conversation.”
Angie held up a silencing finger to her boss and made up something to say to her imaginary caller. “Thank you so much for your feedback, Mr. Watkins. We always appreciate hearing about good customer service, and I’ll be sure to pass along your kudos. Okay. Take care now.” She hung up the phone and greeted her boss with a smile. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t hear what you said.” She mimed a talking mouth with her hand. “He was talking my ear off.”
Mr. Ramsey, however, did not return her smile. In fact, a look of horror sprinted across his face as something behind her snatched his attention. Before Angie could turn around to see what it was, she heard a great shattering, followed by the pelting of glass on her back and right cheek.
A dark-haired man in a brown suit flew through the window headfirst and thudded faceup onto the floor beside her. The impact against the man’s back shoved the air from his lungs. He gurgled as he struggled to regain his breath – although no one could hear it over the screams of Angie and several of her co-workers. Shards of glass protruded from his head and neck, one at the base of an erratic fountain of blood that sprang from his carotid artery.
Angie, now shocked into silence, tore her eyes from the dying man and toward the broken window through which she had daydreamed just a moment earlier. Oblivious to the blood trickling from the small cuts on her own face, she took a step toward the large hole the man’s body had punched into the glass wall. She poked her head outside and looked all around.
Her boss grabbed her and pulled her away from the precarious opening. “Angie, what are you doing? It’s not safe!”
The young woman turned a confused face to him. “Where did he come from?”
My Book Friends
June 15, 2021 by Rebecca Forster in category The Write Life by Rebecca Forster, Writing tagged as #writing, a writers job, amwriting, Best Loved Books, event, readers
This week I had lunch with two of my oldest writing buddies – the ever fabulous Mindy Neff and equally fabulous Sandy Chvostal. I met them soon after publishing my first book. Over the years I have truly come to treasure my book friends. In fact, I think the world should be run by book friends and here is why:
1) Book friends are inclusive. I have never been asked how old I am, what my heritage is, what my political party is, what my religion is. What I have been asked is,’what have you read/written lately?’ Instant friends!
2) Book friends are creative. We share not only a love of reading, but a love of creating. I’ve met sewers, quilter, carpenters, crafters, and chefs. I wonder if we love creating things because we need to move around after spending so much time reading, or do we read because we’re exhausted from our hobbies?
3) Book friends are endlessly curious. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t read, or review, ask questions about what they’ve read, or waxed poetic about it. I love being asked, “have you read (fill in the blank)” because I know the conversation is going to be interesting.
4) Book friends are generous. Time with a book is time we treasure, but reader friends will put down their book to come to another friend’s aid. Period. No questions asked.
5) Book friends are open. All of us have preferred genres, but we like to try something new. I’m a thriller lover yet there are historical fiction books I’ll never forget, nonfiction works I love, even action/adventure novels that have kept me up late into the night.
So it was no surprise that when I received an invitation from a group of authors to join their Facebook reader’s group, My Book Friends, I did. The authors are fun, smart, and generous. They primarily write women’s fiction and romance, but welcome my gritty thrillers. The members of My Book Friends are creative, curious, and inclusive.
The bottom line is this: no one can have too many books or too many book friends. That’s something we can all count on.
You’re Invited June 16, 4-5PM Pacific: Cocktails, Cops & Conversation . Help me celebrate my birthday and Detective Finn O’Brien’s fourth birthday as we talk about my latest release INTIMATE RELATIONS.
Join My Book Friends.
Read INTIMATE RELATIONS FREE at KindleUnlimited; 99¢ to buy
The Finn O’Brien Thriller Series
(Click on the cover for more information. Hover over the cover for buy links.)
Alaska Inferno Book Blitz
June 14, 2021 by marianne h donley in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Rabt Book Tours tagged as #AlaskaInferno, #LoloPaige, #TheBlazingHeartsWildfireSeiries, @RABTBookTours, Kindle Unlimited
Alaska Inferno
Blazing Hearts Wildfire Series, Book Two
Romantic Suspense
Published: May 2021
Publisher: Avoca Press
Purchase Links
About the Book
Romance, fire, and arson – another deadly mix. You’ll love this second chance, action-packed, smoking hot adventure!
Can a series of wildfires lead to true love under a midnight sun?
Jon Silva is back as a wildland fire investigator, along with his well-earned reputation as a crack firefighter and notorious serial dater. But things have changed in Jon’s world. Now, there are only two women in his life—the one he wants, and the one who wants him—at any cost.
Liz Harrington returns to Alaska’s Aurora Crew, fighting wildfire to earn seed money for her new business. She resisted her attraction to Jon last fire season, but this year she’s not sure she can quell the smoldering passion that ignites whenever they’re together. Though it’s tough, she won’t let her heart be another casualty of the infamous Wildland Wolf.
Someone is setting fires on the Kenai Peninsula. When Jon is summoned to investigate and Liz dispatched to fight the blazes, more than the wildlands are heating up. What Jon discovers blows his world apart. And while Liz fights the most catastrophic fire in Alaska’s history, everything she’s worked for may soon go up in flames.
As Liz and Jon race against time to find the arsonist before their beloved Alaska turns to ash, they must find a way to overcome the lethal forces determined to keep them apart. Fire is unpredictable, and so is love – but will their second chance at romance be extinguished before it’s even lit?
Other Books in the Blazing Hearts Wildfire Series:
Alaska Spark
Blazing Hearts Wildfire Series, Book One
Romantic Suspense
Published: May 2020
Purchase Link
About the Book
Romance, sabotage, and fire can be a deadly mix!
Can a chance encounter on a wildfire lead to true love under the midnight sun?
Tara Waters loves being a wildland firefighter and the adrenaline rush of fighting wildfires is her calling. She must be on her game to join an elite hotshot crew in Montana. But when Tara is sent to fight fires in Alaska, her dream falls out of reach.
Sexy Alaskan smokejumper, Ryan O’Connor takes Tara under his wing and counsels her when she fails to save someone on a wildfire. She owes him one, but not her heart just because of his irresistible charm and good looks. Ryan has his own story with plenty of demons in his past. And Tara may be the spark his life needs.
But when a mysterious adversary sabotages Tara on the fire line, she discovers a threat more dangerous than fire—a threat that can destroy everything she’s worked for and second chance for love that could be extinguished before it ignites.
About the Author
LoLo Paige is an award-winning author whose works include novels, short fiction and nonfiction. Her romance books have finaled in several Romance Writers of America (RWA) contests, and her debut novel, Alaska Spark was awarded a 2020 Indie B.R.A.G. Medallion award and was a finalist in the 2021 Eric Hoffer and Next Generation Independent Publishing awards.
Alaska Spark ranked No. 1 on the Amazon Bestseller List for romantic suspense in all markets, including the U.S., Canada, and Australia. The book also ranked in the top 25 in the UK. Alaska Spark has been featured in Publishers Weekly Booklife Magazine, and her nonfiction story about escaping a runaway wildfire won a 2016 Alaska Press Club award. She’s a member of the Alaska Writers Guild, Romance Writers of America, and Romance Writers of Australia.
She divides her time between Alaska and Arizona with her husband and golden retriever, enjoying summers at their Kachemak Bay cabin across from Homer and fishing for halibut and salmon…and writing!
Contact Links
The Blazing Hearts Wildlife Series
(Hover for buy links. Click covers for more information)
Eating–A Writer’s Humanizing Element in Stories Ancient and New
June 13, 2021 by Bethlehem Writers Group in category From a Cabin in the Woods by Members of Bethlehem Writers Group tagged as BWG, Craft, DT Krippene, writing
I remember a National Geographic article from a few years ago, The Joy of Food, by Victoria Pope, offered an interesting observation.
“The sharing of food has always been part of the human story . . . ‘To break bread together’, a phrase as old as the Bible, captures the power of a meal to forge relationships, bury anger, and provoke laughter.”
In creating contemporary fictional scenes, epic fantasy moments, or science fiction settings, food and the act of eating, humanizes a story. Our mouth waters with tantalizing narrative of baked goods and braised stew. Romance tickles when someone gently hand-feeds a morsel of food to a love interest. Intrigue is piqued while supping at the table of a wealthy nineteenth-century Duke. Warmth ebbs in our bones when characters share spit-roasted game around a campfire in the dead of winter. We smile when a normally dysfunctional family banters happily around a holiday feast, setting aside for a moment, that which keeps them apart.
Food can be a defining backdrop with apocalyptic and dystopian fiction. Driven back to our hunter-gatherer forbearers, societies are demoralized with heart-wrenching memories of how abundant food once was. Haves and have-nots when food is scarce, polarize villages, communities, entire nations. Food as common currency is reborn. Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy is an excellent example of this. S.M. Stirling’s Dies the Fire serialized life when the power went out—permanently. Christopher Nolen’s movie Interstellar, painted somberness from food-blighted, agrarian collapse.
Food weighs heavily when portraying communal tables, customs, folklore, and regional diversity. George R.R. Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice series is rich with culinary indulgence and subsistence living. Tolkien’s Hobbits are quiet, yet passionate diners. Elves are vegans, and dwarves—well—they’ll eat anything that isn’t green. Robert Jordan’s fourteen book Wheel of Time series has more eating scenes than grains of sand in the Wicked Witch of the West’s hourglass. Vampire feeding is a genre unto itself. Opinions vary on what Zombies find nutritious.
Science fiction poses a stronger challenge with respect to otherworldly beings, especially when writers have to define characteristics of sentient alien life. Babylon 5 was a jewel of multiple alien interactions, all with unique culinary customs. Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow did a masterful job of characterizing alien beings by what they shared with pioneering visitors from earth. Hard-core Star Trek fans can cite Klingon fare as if reading from a menu. One of my favorite movies was The Matrix where human “copper-tops” dreamed of real food, but the few humans outside the matrix subsisted on something resembling watery eggs. Has all the body needs, amino acids, proteins . . .” The very sight of it made me gag.
Eating is the ultimate show versus tell enhancer. Here’s one in an old story I wrote that attempts to capture all five senses. A pungent smokiness wafted from the meat offering that resembled a hairless, mummified rat carcass. The skin crackled between her teeth and her eyes watered from its unsalted, campfire bitterness. It was like trying to eat a botched taxidermy job, or an Amazonian shrunken beast stolen from a museum.
A story lacking a good eating scene falls short in illustrating a fundamental anthropological trait, not to mention missing out on a lot of fun writing.
What’s my favorite eating scene? Have to turn the clock back to the 1963 movie adaptation of Henry Fielding’s classic novel set in the British eighteenth-century, The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling, where the handsome Tom and his dining partner wordlessly consume an enormous meal while lustfully gazing at each other.
That’s what I call eating.
A native of Wisconsin and Connecticut, DT Krippene deserted aspirations of being a biologist to live the corporate dream and raise a family. After six homes, a ten-year stint in Asia, and an imagination that never slept, his annoying muse refuses to be hobbled as a mere dream. Dan writes dystopia, paranormal, and science fiction. His current project is about a young man struggling to understand why he was born in a time when humans are unable to procreate and knocking on extinction’s door.
You can find DT on his website and his social media links.
Some of DT Krippene short stories appear in the following anthologies
Challenging Myself To Write A Book Review
June 12, 2021 by Denise M. Colby in category The Writing Journey by Denise Colby tagged as book review, Denise M. ColbyI have found writing book reviews a little intimidating. Even though I know as a expectant published author they are important and help with book sales. I’m not one to share my opinion on something unless asked. And I tend to stress over the words I choose for explaining what I mean. I mean, what if what I say misses the mark? Or offends someone? And I’m not as eloquent as someone else. Have you read some great reviews on a story and wish you could phrase things like that?
Yet, a book review is just that.
An opinion.
And someone might be interested to hear about it from my point of vew.
I have to remember that.
And then when I decided I would try, my kindle only lets me select a star count, not write words, so I’d have to go downstairs to my computer, log-in and find the purchase and write the review. It makes an already reluctant book review writer want to scream.
Yet, don’t I read reviews when making purchases to see if it’s something that fits my interests? I need to at least try.
So now I have a notebook on my ottomon so that when I finish a story I can practice writing a review.
Writing a Book Review
I recently took the time to type up one of them and post it.
I also see that sometimes people review books in blog posts, and that’s a new challenge for me.
So, in the essence of practice, I wanted to post a review in a blog post as well.
Here I go;
Sing in the Sunlight by Kathleen Denly
This is book 2 in her Chaparral Hearts series, published by Wild Heart Books (and yes I’ve read book 1 and looking forward to book #3). The historical setting is in California, mostly in the San Diego area.
Sing in the Sunlight by Kathleen Denly is a special story of love, kindness, & patience.
I loved the characters, their interactions with each other, and the way God’s words were woven throughout the story naturally.
The historical context was rich with details and I felt right there in the story.
The struggles of doubt and longing and the lies we believe were very easy to identify with.
It’s amazing what can happen when one continuously seeks God’s wisdom and stays on the path of doing what’s right. I want to be a better person after reading this.
I wanted to disclose that I received a free copy from the author but was not required to review it. I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to share.
It’s not a large review, but it came from the heart. Maybe I will get more comfortable with this and learn to expand a bit more.
Are you comfortable writing book reviews? For those more experienced, any words of wisdom?
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