Excerpt From “Thistle Down” and “Wild Rose” by Sherrie Hansen

When Ian MacCraig tries to capture the thief who is stealing artifacts from his kirk in Loch Awe, Scotland, the last thing he expects to find on his video is a woman engaging in a passionate romp under the flying buttresses.

Rose Wilson is mortified to learn that Digby, the online friend she met for what she thought was a harmless rendezvous, is a common criminal.

Now that Ian, the board of Wilson Enterprises, the constable, and half the town have had a glimpse of Rose in all her naked glory, it seems even her family looks at her differently. What remains to be seen is how far Ian will go to defend Rose’s honor and if the church ladies will forgive Rose now that they know who she really is… and if Rose can believe she’s worthy of someone as good and kind as Ian MacCraig.

Wild Rose and Pastor Ian MacCraig… a match made in heaven or one hell of a predicament?

EXCERPT:

Rose Wilson turned away from the wind that whistled across Loch Awe in a futile attempt to keep her hair from being blown into a tangled knot.

Something nipped at her ankle and she reached down to swat it away. Pesky midgies.

Ouch! Her hand scratched against the thorny stem of a thistle. One more thing. As if the sticky wicket she’d gotten herself into hadn’t already worked her into enough of a dither. She glanced up at the lofty spires of St. Conan’s Kirk. If she were at all religious, she might think God was trying to tell her something.

Where could he be? It had been nigh on three years since she’d stood waiting, and waiting, and waiting at Robert’s and her favorite restaurant. When he never showed up, she’d been angry – thought he’d gotten too busy at work, forgotten she was waiting, or, worse yet, remembered and blown her off.

How could she have known he was dead?

Here she was again. So it was a kirk and not a restaurant. A man she didn’t know all that well instead of her husband. The emotions felt the same. She was peeved. So peeved she could almost forget what it was like to feel abandoned, to hurt so badly she could barely keep her head about her.

She took a deep breath and tried to relax. Would she ever get over being scared that something horrible had happened every time someone was a wee bit tardy?

He was almost an hour later than he’d said he’d be. She peeked through the hedge and tried to see round the bend that led to the village.

What were the odds that two men she was supposed to meet would die en route to their rendezvous point? She paced up and down the path that led to the kirk, squelching her nervous energy only long enough to look at a bee dipping into a rhody that was a lovely shade of lavender. And then, she was back at it, scanning the roadside for Digby’s car, checking the time on her mobile every few seconds, and imagining the worst.

She’d been waiting for an hour – plenty long enough for Digby to get there even if he’d been temporarily detained at work, gotten a speeding ticket, or stopped by the mini-mart to buy her flowers. Besides, the man had a mobile.

She clicked hers open and pressed the green button twice. Still no answer.

Where could he be? And why now? Was it because she’d been too intimate with him? Not intimate enough?

“Excuse me, ma’am.”

She blinked and looked in the direction of the voice, but the sun was in her eyes, and all she could see was a soft sheen of light backlighting the silhouette of a very tall man. Too tall to be Digby. She raised her hand to her eyes to shade the light but the sun was still blinding, clinging to his head like a halo.

“Forgive me,” the man said, just as she saw his collar, the white square gleaming brightly between the black, and thought, shouldn’t it be me saying that?

“Sorry to intrude,” he continued. “I couldn’t help noticing that you seem to be looking for someone.”

So much for her and Dig having the place to themselves. Of course, as of this moment, there wasn’t a “them” anyway, so it mattered little if they had privacy. Besides, she had been going to tell him that they couldn’t do it again, that it was too soon, that what had happened shouldn’t have. Not yet. That didn’t mean she didn’t want to be alone with him, to do something. She probably did, eventually. Just not so much, or quite so fast.

“I’m waiting for a friend,” she said.

“You’ve still plenty of time,” he said. “Worship doesn’t begin for another half hour.”

The sun wasn’t in his eyes, but behind him, illuminating her face. She knew, even without being able to see his eyes, that he could read hers perfectly.

“I didn’t realize…”

“We’ve a small but active congregation,” the man said, extending his hand. “Ian MacCraig. St. Conan’s pastor.”

***

One question you’d like commenters to answer relative to your post:  If your pastor was single, would it bother you if he or she started to date a woman or man who had been caught in a compromising situation , and who didn’t share his or her religious beliefs?

Tell us about yourself:

Twenty-one years ago, I bought a dilapidated Victorian house in northern Iowa so I could move home and be nearer my family. I rescued an amazing but very run-down old house from the bulldozer’s grips and turned it into a bed and breakfast and tea house, the Blue Belle Inn. Since then, welcoming guests, running the business and cooking wonderful food has consumed the largest chunk of my life.

Before that, I lived in Colorado Springs, CO, and before that, Augsburg, Germany. I attended Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL and spent one life-changing summer in Bar Harbor, Maine. I grew up on a farm in southern Minnesota.

After 12 years of writing romance novels late at night when I couldn’t sleep (mostly because I was so keyed up from working 12 hour days at my B&B), I met and married my real-life, romantic hero, Mark Decker, a pastor. I enjoy playing the piano with the worship team at church, needlepointing, photography, renovating and decorating historic houses, traveling, and going on weekly adventures with my nieces and nephews.

I live in 2 different houses, 85 miles apart, and write on the run, whenever I have a spare minute. “Wild Rose” is my sixth book to be published by Second Wind Publishing.

Links (website, blog, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, book buy links, etc.):

http://www.facebook.com/SherrieHansenDecker,

http://sherriehansen.wordpress.com/,

https://twitter.com/#!/SherrieHansen,

http://www.secondwindpublishing.com/index.php?manufacturers_id=24

Excerpt from “It Takes Two to Strangle: A Damon Lassard Dabbling Detective Mystery” by Stephen Kaminski

When the owner of a traveling carnival is strangled—not once but twice—on opening night of the summer fair in Hollydale, the police surmise he was not well liked. As the head of Hollydale’s citizens association and local liaison with the carnival, Damon Lassard feels obligated to help his dear friend, Detective Gerry Sloman, solve the crime. Damon is determined to bring the killer to justice, to the fascination of his mother, best gal pal Rebecca, and lovely local weather girl, Bethany Krims. To unravel the threads underpinning this peculiar murder, Damon will travel far from Hollydale as his quest to find a murderer leads to the discovery of long hidden and horrific crimes.

It Takes Two to Strangle introduces Hollydale’s lovable neighborhood leader, Damon Lassard, and twists the dabbling detective through an intricate maze of greed, deception, and murder.

EXCERPT:

Damon steered his car through the downtown streets in search of a friendly place where he could gather information. He stopped at a diner on a busy street half a mile from the Uniontown mall. A short line of people smoking dotted the sidewalk to the left of the entrance. The interior of the restaurant was so brightly lit Damon had to narrow his eyes upon entering. Sitting at the breakfast bar, he ordered a lemonade and asked the waitress if she knew the baseball coach at Battle Park High School. She responded politely that the school was “a ways out of town,” and she didn’t know any of the coaches. But when she returned with his drink, she brought one of the hostesses and introduced her as a rising high school senior.

“You’re looking for the baseball coach at Battle Park?” the girl asked, knotting shoulder-length kinked black hair with her index finger. Acne and light freckles were blanketed by heavy pancake make-up, usually reserved for women three times her age.

“I am,” Damon replied. “Do you go there?”

“No, but I have friends who do. I can find out in about ten seconds.” Which she did. The hostess reached into the front pocket of her apron and removed a smart phone. She pressed a speed dial code, spoke quickly and gave him a thumbs-up in ten seconds flat. But she kept talking for another five minutes, and, without failing to remove the phone from her ear, seated a young family who had just approached the hostess stand. Damon sipped his lemonade patiently. It was terrible—made from straight powder and without enough sugar. But by the time he choked down half of it, the teen returned and gave him the name of David Johnson, who taught biology when he wasn’t coaching the team.

Great, Damon thought sarcastically, could there be a more common name? The phone book could be littered with David Johnsons and D. Johnsons. And he didn’t even know whether this particular one lived in Uniontown.

But the hostess had even more information for him—a diamond in the diner. She didn’t know whether the coach would be there, but there was a baseball complex five miles northwest of town that hosted high school summer league games almost every Sunday night during June and July.

Damon wrote down directions to the park and slipped the hostess a twenty dollar bill but left the remainder of the lemonade on the counter.

***

STEPHEN KAMINSKI is the author of It Takes Two to Strangle, the first book in the Damon Lassard Dabbling Detective series. He is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Law School. Stephen has practiced law for over a decade and currently serves as General Counsel to a national non-profit organization. He is a lifelong lover of all types of mysteries and lives with his wife and daughter in Arlington, Virginia. The second book in the Damon Lassard series is expected to be published in September 2013.

Links:

http://www.damonlassard.com

http://www.amazon.com/It-Takes-Two-Strangle-Detective/dp/0988194317/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363627846&sr=8-1&keywords=stephen+kaminski

Excerpt From: “Not Safe for the Bank(er) A Fiona Gavelle Mystery” by Una Tiers

Fiona Gavelle just wanted to get a roll of quarters but ended up in the middle of another murder investigation. Meet Father Gizzle and Mary Ann and find out whether or not Fiona gave her business card to the murderer.

Excerpt:

The police car parked on the sidewalk didn’t suggest anything out of order, but the crowd inside the bank did. As the door hit me in the ass, I stopped like a cartoon character.

Feigning confidence to cover my indecision, I scanned the room. Ten or twelve police and an equal number of humorless guys in suits were watching me with at least scorn. Mr. Fives, the bank manager was sitting in the lounge area squeezing his face in his hands, then running them up through his hair making it stand up in goofy clumps.

His eyes widened, “Ms. Gavelle you need to help me.” He stood up part way and sank down in resignation.

Relieved to see a friendly face, and inappropriately curious, I started over to him.

“Are you okay Mr. Fives?”

Before he answered, a large man stepped between us fuming with exasperation.

“You can’t talk to him.”

“He’s asked to speak to his lawyer.” I searched for a poker face to apply. Oh how I love when my mind works at lawyer speed.

After some mumbling and discussion among the suits and uniforms, the large man stepped aside and Mr. Fives and I went into his office. The floor to ceiling glass walls would drive me crazy but in a bank I guess they were necessary. Mr. Fives looked considerably less handsome with a splotchy face than when sitting at his desk printing out extra copies of my monthly statements or hawking a new credit card feature.

“I don’t know what happened…” he started.

A slight blur of movement distracted me. “Wait,” I held up my hand.

“They think I…” He blundered.

“Stop.”

“Why?”

“Ssh.” I whispered impatiently.

For a few seconds he looked confused. Looking through to the curious crowd inching closer to the glass, watching us without shame, he figured it out. Turning his back to the glass window, he continued. “Carol’s dead. She was murdered in the vault this morning.” His nose was running and he wiped it on a real handkerchief wadded up in a death grip in his hand.

“Carol?” I started. “Murdered?”

“Dead, murdered, gone, and they think I did it because I was the last one in the vault last night.”

“You didn’t admit anything did you?”

His wretched look suggested he had. Didn’t he watch television? Innocent questions and honest answers always get people in trouble.

My fingers were less than steady when I pulled out my cell phone and called Bob Noodle, an attorney who actually practices criminal law. I’m just a reasonable faker because I watch lawyer and cop programs and reruns of Police Woman.

***

Bio: Una Tiers is an attorney in Chicago, Illinois. She murders people (on paper) to relieve stress or if they sass her. Her school chum asked if she would be in one of her books and the result is Not Safe for the Bank(er). It’s a short story/humorcide.

eBook: http://www.amazon.com/Not-Safe-Bank-er-ebook/dp/B00CPCJA66

website: http://unatiers.com

trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX03yc1t0Ws

Rubicon Ranch: Secrets — The Story Begins!

Rubicon Ranch is a collaborative and innovative crime series set in the fictional desert community of Rubicon Ranch and is being written online by the authors of Second Wind Publishing. The very first chapter of the very first book (Rubicon Ranch: Riley’s Story) was posted on October 24, 2010, and we are still going strong! In fact, we are getting better and better. Seven authors, including me, are involved in the current story — Rubicon Ranch: Secrets, which is shaping up to be a psychological thriller.

The body of a local realtor is found beneath the wheels of an inflatable figure of a Santa on a motorcycle. The realtor took great delight in ferreting out secrets, and everyone in this upscale housing development is hiding something. Could she have discovered a secret someone would kill to protect? There will be suspects galore, including a psychic, a con man, a woman trying to set up an online call-girl service, and the philandering sheriff himself. Not only is the victim someone he had an affair with, but he will also have to contend with an ex-wife who has moved back in with him and a jilted lover, both with their own reasons for wanting the realtor dead.

Although some of the characters were introduced in Rubicon Ranch: Riley’s Story, the first collaboration in the series, and further developed in Rubicon Ranch: Necropieces, Rubicon Ranch: Secrets is a stand-alone novel, so don’t worry if you are new to Rubicon Ranch. A new chapter will be posted every Monday on the Rubicon Ranch blog. I’m posting the first chapter here, but if you don’t want to miss further chapters, please go to the blog and click on “sign me up” on the right sidebar to get notifications of new chapters.

We hope you will enjoy seeing the story develop as we write it. Let the mystery begin! Whodunit? No one knows, not even the writers, and we won’t know until the very end!

(If the Christmas theme seems unseasonal, well . . . considering how long it takes to write a book at the rate of a chapter a week, in a few months, the season will catch up to us!)

Excerpt from Chapter 1: Melanie Gray
by Pat Bertram

Sunday, December 22; 7:05pm

Melanie Gray typed THE END, then sat back and studied the words on the computer screen. She’d found no satisfaction in telling the story of famed horror writer Morris Sinclair’s macabre life and death, and she felt no elation now that she’d finished the task. The evil man should have been buried in unhallowed ground and left to rot rather than be immortalized in a book, but she’d needed the money her publisher had offered. With the generous advance, she would be able to devote herself to finding out who killed her husband five months previously and, more importantly, why the murderer wanted Alexander dead. Morris had wooed death his whole life, so it was no surprise that death had come for him, but Alexander’s murder could not be so easily dismissed.

Tears stung Melanie’s eyes. She scrubbed the tears away, furious at herself for still grieving. She’d always considered herself a strong woman, up to any task, and yet she couldn’t write “the end” to her grief.

Damn you, Alexander! How could you do this to me?

She rose stiffly, stretched to get the worst of the kinks from her body, and tottered to the front closet for her coat. Except for a few hours of fitful sleep each night during the past nine weeks, she’d spent all her time at the computer, and she was sick of it. Sick of Morris Sinclair. Sick of death. Sick of Rubicon Ranch.

She opened the front door and blinked at the shadowy figures gliding through the darkness. Morris’s fans had descended on the neighborhood when news of his demise had hit the airwaves, and they had stayed when they learned that not all of Morris’s body pieces had been recovered. Dressed as vampires and zombies and ghouls of every imaginable—and unimaginable—ilk, they roamed the neighborhood and the nearby desert looking for necropieces in some sort of grisly treasure hunt.

Melanie hesitated, wondering at the wisdom of going out so late in the evening, but the twinkle of Christmas lights adorning a nearby desert willow made her set aside her caution.

Alexander had always loved Christmas, and no matter where in the world they happened to be living, he managed to find a tree and decorate it. If Alexander still lived in her memory, he’d want her to wander through the neighborhood so he could see the lights.

Smiling at the whimsical thought, she locked the door behind her and strolled down the driveway to Delano Road. Even with half the houses lit up with holiday decorations, the neighborhood seemed dark. Too many people had left the area, temporarily abandoning their homes, though the flickering of candlelight through closed curtains hinted that squatters had taken up residence in some of the empty houses.

Melanie stood at the curb, trying to decide whether to go right or left. “It’s your fault, Alexander,” she murmured. “Until you died, I never had a problem making decisions.” But now, it didn’t make any difference whether she went north or south, whether she left Rubicon Ranch or stayed. Without Alexander, everything seemed uniformly bleak.

A house across the street all at once came ablaze with thousands of small white lights. Melanie cut across the road and headed for the brightness, wishing Alexander could see the decorations for real. Lights outlined the driveway, every bush, every rock, and dripped from the eaves like dazzling falls of lace.

She walked leisurely, savoring the radiant display on Alexander’s behalf, then hurried past the next dwelling, which was dark, and slowed again at the following house to look at the whimsical blow-up figure of Santa on a motorcycle.

After the brilliance of the lights at the first domicile, she had to wait a moment to let her eyes adjust to the relative dimness of this scene. And then she wished she hadn’t hung around to get a better look. Santa, with a wide grin and an upraised hand, seemed to be gleefully running over the prone body of a woman. A mannequin, it looked like.

Melanie drew in a sharp breath. Who would create such a morbid tableau for Christmas? But then, seeing a vampire with glowing teeth run past her, she sighed. Anyone in this insane neighborhood could have done it. After Morris Sinclair’s demise, Rubicon Ranch had become a bacchanalia of death, a celebration of the worst in humanity.

A car moved along the street behind her. The headlights illuminated the scene as clearly as if it were day, and suddenly something seemed wrong. So very wrong.

The woman being run over by the cheery Santa looked stiff in the way of death, not stiff like a mannequin.

Melanie told herself to continue on, to forget the gruesome sight and enjoy the rest of the decorations, but her leaden feet refused to do her bidding. Finally, wishing she were anywhere but here, she crept closer to the scene.

She caught a faint whiff of death—like meat just beginning to go bad—and her heart beat faster.

Click here to continue reading →

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” All Bertram’s books are published by Second Wind Publishing. Connect with Pat on Google+

Excerpt From “A Retrospect in Death” by J. Conrad Guest

Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: “After 60 years the stern sentence of the burial service seems to have a meaning that one did not notice in former years. There begins to be something personal about it.” While John Oxenham wrote: “For death begins with life’s first breath; and life begins at touch of death.”

A Retrospect in Death is a story about discovery. You think you know yourself? Perhaps you only think you do. Do those closest to us know us better than we know ourselves; or do they, as we often insist, know jack? Consider that only in death can you really know, and understand, who and why you are—or were. And then ask yourself: At that point, is it too late? Does it even matter?

Darker than any of J. Conrad Guest’s previous novels, while also more humorous, it portends not only a search for the meaning of life, but also seeks to determine why we are as we are: prewired at conception, or the product of our environment?

EXCERPT:

My room was in Art Centre Hospital, on Woodward Avenue in Detroit.

The race riots were in full bloom in 1967, and from my first floor room I watched armed National Guard troops drive past my window in jeeps.

Mom left – Dad had stayed home – just before Ed Sullivan came on, telling me, “Good night, honey. I’ll be back in the morning, before you go into surgery. Don’t worry. Everything will be all right.” She sounded somewhat worried herself, although I wasn’t. This was my first night away from home; it was an adventure.

A short time later, a male intern came in with a chrome bowl and a straight razor to tell me it was time for my shave.

“I’m eleven,” I said. “I don’t shave.”

He grinned and told me to raise my hospital gown.

With that, he proceeded to lather up my balls with soap, and then shave them.

I was on edge, listening to the rasp of the blade against my balls. Rodney Dangerfield was doing a stand-up act on the TV. He told a joke about being held up by a mugger with a knife. “I could tell it wasn’t a professional job,” he said. “There was butter on it.” I heard the intern chuckle, which left me feeling even testier over my predicament.

The intern left; a few minutes later, a nurse came in, a plump black woman.

“Time for your enema,” she said.

“What’s an enema?”

“I put this,” she told me, holding up a plastic nozzle attached to a hose that was in turn attached to a bag of what appeared to be soapy water, “into your backside and release the contents of this bag into your colon.”

My eyes got the size of silver dollars, prompting the intern to laugh. I watched her immense breasts shake from the ferocity of her laughter, its pitch that of a baritone.

“Don’t worry. It’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s to clean out your colon before surgery. Now roll over onto your side.

I did as I was told; a moment later, feeling violated, I felt the nozzle inserted into my rectum. The flood of the water felt warm as my colon expanded to accommodate it.

“Almost there,” the nurse said. I felt as if my colon were about to explode.

A moment later, she withdrew the nozzle, and then told me to head to the bathroom to release the water. Like I needed to be told.

I raced to the bathroom and sat just in the nick of time, releasing the water, and everything that accompanied it, into the porcelain bowl.

I sat there for about fifteen minutes as my bowels emptied in sequential movements – like the orchestra to which my parents had taken me and Francine to see over the summer: long classical pieces played in what our program called “movements.” Every time I thought the musicians were done playing, they launched into yet another movement. Now, each time I felt I was done, I’d lean forward to wipe my backside only to feel yet another movement.

When I finally crawled back into my bed, I wondered what new dread might await me next in this little shop of horrors.

My surgery was scheduled for Monday morning, and a nurse came in first thing to give me a shot of something, which left me feeling groggy.

A short time later, my bed was wheeled out of my room and toward the operating room. My mother walked alongside me, with her hand on top of mine.

At the door to the operating room, my mother again reassured me that everything was going to be all right. At eleven, I had no clue as to the dangers of surgery. I was about to be cut open and couldn’t wait to tell my buddies of the ordeal, sans the shave and the enema parts. Like a soldier wounded in a war, I intended to bear my scar proudly.

I was wheeled under the brightest lights I’d ever seen, and a mask was put over my face; a voice told me to count backward from one hundred. I got to ninety-seven and…

***

J. Conrad Guest is the author of Backstop: A Baseball Love Story in Nine Innings, available from Second Wind Publishing. Backstop was nominated as a Michigan Notable Book in 2010, and was adopted by the Illinois Institute of Technology as required reading for their spring 2011 course, “Baseball: America’s Literary Pastime.” He is also the author of One Hot January and January’s Thaw, both available from Second Wind.

J. Conrad appears on Facebook, Twitter, his website, and on his author page at Second Wind Publishing.

Excerpt from “Changes” by Allen Wyler

Cardiologist Chris Holden suffers a life-threatening heart attack on the side of a mountain, not far from where his son vanished five years earlier. Near death, he wonders what it would be like if he had the chance to live his life over again, with the wisdom he has already gained.

Joel Holden never wanted to be like his hard-driving, joyless father. Joel has his own dreams, and when the chance comes to disappear—to begin life again on his own terms—he abandons the past to forge his own future. What he can’t escape are the mistakes he made. And the men who want him dead.

Chris awakens to find himself in his son’s body—younger, stronger, his wisdom and experiences blended with Joel’s thoughts and memories. He lives again, but at a cost. Will wisdom be enough when the mistakes of Joel’s past threaten to bring Joel’s dreams and Chris’s second chance at life to a swift and deadly end?

EXCERPT:

Twenty feet ahead, Matt stops, turns to him, says, “Dude, this is work.”

“You got that right.” Sweating like a stoker on the Titanic, Joel sucks a deep lungful of crisp air. Ice crystals sparkle to his right, where snow-laden pines cast high contrast shadows on a brilliant white blanket. To his left is a precipitous drop with a view out across a frozen alpine lake and stunning blue sky. Not a cloud in sight. The scene contains splendor far greater than anything ever captured in a nature photograph. Moments like this are the only reason for busting ass on a pair of snowshoes. Snowshoeing! The ultimate stupid sport. And the ultimate break from having to make a decision. One that can cost his life.

“How about we stop for lunch just over that rise?” Matt yells back.

“What?”

The rumble spans two long seconds of disbelief as the brain isn’t able to comprehend the ominous vibrations against the soles of his feet or the deep rumble in his ears. Two seconds of confusion punctuated by terror.

This is the second day of record-breaking heat after weeks of heavy snows, producing conditions they both knew to avoid but at the same time found too glorious to resist. But Joel especially needs a break from the stress of reaching a decision.

Joel glances uphill and sees a wall of snow hurling toward them. He screams, “Avalanche!”

Matt freezes in horror, eyes locked on the billowing white mass cascading down on him.

“MATT!”

Matt can’t seem to move. And then, when he does, his legs seem mired in quicksand.

“MATT! RUN!”

In the next millisecond the survival odds register on Joel’s subconscious: zero for Matt, fifty-fifty for him. He yanks the personal GPS from his parka and throws it hard at Matt, hoping only to mark the general location. He turns and tries to run—not fast enough either—from the thundering two hundred tons of snow hurtling down on them. A massive blur roars straight through the path they were hiking—swallowing Matt and drowning out any other sound. He catches a glimpse of red swept off the ledge toward the lake, swallowed in a mass of snow. More snow roars past like a long freight train.

Suddenly, the blur stops and dissolves into a quickly dying funnel of shifting snow. The avalanche missed him by only a foot.

Dead eerie silence.

Seconds pass and then a secondary brief rumble of more snow settling into the shifted terrain.

Panting, he bends over, grasps his knees. His heart pounds with incredible joy and gratitude for his being safe instead of suffocating in a dark freezing tomb. One fucking foot!

It registers: Matt is gone, swallowed by the avalanche. He, on the other hand, is alive.

He peers into the valley, sees no sign of Matt, not even a hint of red from the bright parka. Joel takes a tentative step in that direction, but snow shifts against his legs, rolling into the slide zone, warning him to stay away. He tries again. More snow crashes down. He backs up, terrified at being swept into the snow bank and buried too. And if he isn’t buried, the fight to climb back up will sap his strength and make it impossible to go for help. Leaving him no choice but to leave and go for help.

He turns to start the trek back, hoping the GPS unit may, with luck, help them find Matt’s body. But even that’s unlikely.

***

In 2002 Allen Wyler left active practice as a neurosurgeon to become Medical Director for a start-up medical technology company, Northstar Neuroscience, which went public (NSTR) in 2006. At the end of 2007 he retired to devote full time to writing.

He and his wife divide their time between their downtown Seattle condo and home in the San Juan Islands.

Click here to read an: Interview with Allen Wyler, Author of “Changes”

Excerpt From “Reality Boulevard” by Melissa Jo Peltier

New York Times bestseller Melissa Jo Peltier turns her attention to the brilliant, back-stabbing world of prime-time television in this wickedly funny new novel.

In it, we see Oscar-winning producer Marty Maltzman and his staff out of a job – and out on the streets – when long-running docu-series Lights and Sirens is unexpectedly axed. But the Hollywood the team now faces is full of Kardashians and Real Housewives, and they need to survive in a world where it’s very hard to tell what’s true and what isn’t – both on and off screen.

Oscar and Emmy winning documentarian and veteran reality producer (Big Brother, Rescue 911) Arnold Shapiro called the novel “the best satirical look behind the scenes of reality television ever written”, adding: “It contains more truth than you would believe.”

EXCERPT:

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Jerry asked “What did I tell you about getting serious with actresses?”

“Look,” Marty began, “Crimson’s different – “

“Crimson!” Jerry spluttered. “Oh, Marty. The name alone.”

“Jerry. She’s a serious, working actress. “

Jerry sighed. After all, it had been Jerry himself who, twenty-five years earlier, had schooled Marty on the industry distinction between a working actor and a common wanabee actor: genus and species Opus Ludius versus the ubiquitous Vacuus Ludius. According to Jerry and those jaded above-the-liners who subscribed to his philosophy, the second type could be found at any time of day or night: at the gym, sculpting their impossibly flawless physiques; at Starbucks, pecking out star vehicle screenplays on their laptops; at clubs and industry parties, seeking access to the plush lifestyles to which they aspired. Some of the more industrious among them were waiting tables in Santa Monica and West Hollywood, ushering at the Arclight Hollywood or Sherman Oaks, or guiding tour busses though the Universal Studios back lot, hoping to make an impression in a more productive way. There were many, however, who always seemed to be just scraping by; living off the largess of parents, roommates, lovers, sugar daddies or mommies. Most of them were extremely good looking, young, and famously flighty.

Working actors, Opus Ludii, were a different species altogether. They had real agents and managers who didn’t work out of their apartments. They were known by at least a couple of the major casting agents in town. Working actors had the training to prove that they viewed their careers as art and craft rather than as fame vehicle. They spent more of their free time in classes and workshops than in gyms and plastic surgeon’s offices, haunted the new play section at the Samuel French bookshop, and earned at least enough income from acting in a given year to qualify for the Screen Actor’s Guild health insurance program. Some of them even had homes, families, and relatively normal lives outside of work.

***

Melissa Jo Peltier has been honored for her film and television writing, producing and directing with two Emmys, a Peabody, Humanitas and more than 50 other awards and nominations.

An executive producer of the thrice Emmy-nominated and People’s Choice-winning reality series Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan, she co-authored five New York Times best-selling books with its star, along with two more non-fiction titles.

Melissa is a co-founder of Burbank-based MPH Entertainment, Inc, which has created over 350 hours of original non-fiction and reality programming.

Her dramatic work includes writing the Lifetime movie Nightwaves, and the episode The Collector for the hit CBS series Ghost Whisperer.

Most recently, she produced the festival-winning indie feature White Irish Drinkers for New York-based Ovington Avenue Productions, of which she is also a principal with her husband, film/TV writer/director John Gray.

http://www.apostrophebooks.com/books/realityboulevard
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Excerpt From “Crescendo” by Deborah J Ledford

One murdered woman.
A missing child.
The diabolic father who will do anything to get his son back.
The female cop who risks everything to keep the boy safe.

CRESCENDO– Redemption with a bullet

As the only female Native American officer on the Bryson City, North Carolina police force, Inola Walela, must always play her A game. All bets are off when during a routine traffic stop the passenger insists her son has been kidnapped but is struck by a car before Inola can glean any hard facts. An altercation ensues and Inola’s partner is felled by a bullet—possibly from her gun. On administrative leave, fraught with guilt for allegedly killing her partner, and obsessed with the possibility of a missing child out there somewhere, she defies the force and her fiancé, Sheriff Steven Hawk. Inola sets off on her own journey to find the missing boy.

EXCERPT:

Breath catching in her throat, Inola rose to her knees. She winced as more tires screeched. Metal scraping metal added to the cacophony of noise and confusion. “Jesus,” she muttered, taking in the scene: the woman face down on the highway, arms and legs splayed, blonde hair covering her face.

“Inola!” Cody screamed.

She whirled to see her partner struggling with the driver. One handcuff was secured to the offender’s wrist, but the other swayed loose. The two men battled for Cody’s weapon.

A single gunshot split the air.

Inola jumped to her feet, drew her pistol, took a Weaver’s stance and fired. The driver’s mouth opened and closed as he uttered a deep guttural moan.

Inola ran, feeling as though she glided above the roadway. She kept her Glock trained on the driver. He shuddered. Gasped. His body went limp and dropped to a sitting position against the cruiser’s bumper. She kicked Cody’s gun from the driver’s hand and holstered her weapon.

Hand to his neck, Cody grinned shakily and croaked, “Nice shot, partner.” A trail of blood fell downward. Crimson puddled on the white line of the road. Cody emitted an odd gurgle and slid down the cruiser’s grille to plop beside the driver.

It took a moment for Inola to realize the blood wasn’t coming from the prisoner. Thick claret seeped through Cody’s fingers, staining the neck of his uniform and T-shirt, dropping to his hands in his lap.

Fingers shaking, Inola fumbled for the mic on her shoulder. “Officer down! Officer down! This is unit five-one-eleven. Three down. I need three busses.” She strangled a sob. Fury and terror took over all capacity of reasoning. “My partner’s been shot! Officer eleven-seven-four is down. Please…please help me!”

She dropped to her knees and reached out to stanch the flow streaming from Cody’s neck. “Hold on, partner. Medics are on the way.”

“Gave…up,” Cody stuttered. His eyes locked on Inola’s and then he lowered his head.

She followed his gaze to something clenched in his hand. Cody waved a credit card-sized piece of plastic between his fingers.

“Gave…up…”

Inola’s stomach lurched as she took the slick, sticky card. Cody coughed and frothy blood bubbled from his lips. She gathered her partner in her arms and rocked him. “No, Cody. Dammit, don’t give up. Please! Please. Don’t give up.”

Hot wetness soaked the front of her uniform. She clamped a hand over his pulsating wound. His blood oozed between her fingers. Praying for the ambulance and backup to arrive, she glanced around. Her body convulsed as she took in the accident scene that resembled a disaster movie more than a real-life scenario. Cars were parked in a line along the exit ramp to her right. Gridlocked vehicles clogged each lane of traffic, stunned citizens stood a safe distance away. The ashen atmosphere muted every color as fat snowflakes fluttered from the sky.

The sound of footfalls alerted her that danger still loomed. She eased Cody to the ground, slid her Glock from its holster, pivoted toward shuffling steps.

A man approached, a woman’s limp body draped in his arms, blonde hair streaming downward, the hem of her flowered dress skimming the pavement.

Inola assessed the situation—Cody, the lifeless driver, the woman, the stranger. She was about to yell out to put the woman down. Didn’t he realize he had just tainted the scene by moving her? But the look of horror on his face stopped her protest.

“I didn’t mean to hit her.” He lowered to his knees and laid the woman at Inola’s feet. “Please, can you help her? I think she’s dying.”

Inola eased her hand out and carefully swept aside the veil of hair. Her stomach lurched at the sight of the right side of the victim’s head, flatter than it should be. She placed a shaking hand to the white as porcelain neck. No beat pulsated under her fingertips. “I’m sorry,” she told the man.

His shoulders slumped as he mumbled a few words Inola could not decipher.

She wrenched away and hurried back to Cody, pulled him to her lap and resumed clutching his neck. Although the blood had slowed, it continued a thick path and she worried he would bleed out right there in her arms.

“Cody, open your eyes, partner. I need you to stay awake until the medics get here.”

He didn’t stir. Sirens wailed, growing louder with each beat of Inola’s racing heart. Feeling every bystander’s eyes on her, she settled her gaze on the only person who could possibly understand the magnitude of what had occurred—who, too, would suffer the consequences of this unforeseen catastrophe—the man who had also killed someone that day.

***

Deborah J Ledford’s latest novel of suspense, CRESCENDO, is book three of the Steven Hawk/Inola Walela series. Other novels include SNARE, Finalist for The Hillerman Sky Award and the NM-AZ Book Awards, and the classical-music themed STACCATO. Deborah is a three-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and her award-winning short stories appear in numerous print publications as well as literary and mystery anthologies. Part Eastern Band Cherokee, she spent her summers growing up in western North Carolina where her novels are set. Deborah invites you to visit her website: www.DeborahJLedford.com  

Excerpt From “Being God,” a contemporary YA novel by B. A. Binns

Seventeen-year-old Malik Kaplan is the bully of Chicago’s Farrington High School. Malik has a cross to bear, or maybe it’s a Star of David; being the black teenaged son of a Catholic mother and Jewish father frequently makes life confusing. His grandfather, uncle, and older brother all ruled as the BAMFs at Farrington. Only his father is a “forgotten Kaplan,” and seems disinterested in his only surviving son.

Malik is determined to be the worst of the worst and not repeat his father’s mistakes; even if that costs him the people he cares about. At least he can drink. Alcohol keeps him going; alcohol is destroying his life. But he doesn’t see any problem, not even after he finds himself in court, shouldering the blame for someone else’s crime. Suddenly he’s faced with court-ordered community service shepherding an angry ten-year-old who hates the world, an “offer he can’t refuse” from the boy’s gang leader brother, and an opponent he can’t crush: Barney, a fourteen-year-old girl who watched her alcoholic father abuse and murder her mother. She wants nothing to do with any bad boy, especially not one who thinks drinking is the way to forget his sins.

Malik and Barney are forced to work together to help the kid and themselves escape the pull of the gang, and to rediscover the real meaning of family and friendship.

EXCERPT

We begin with a run around the block to warm up her muscles. I jog with her, keeping the pace slow when I see her favoring one leg. Her shoulder looks iffy, too. But she has endurance and doesn’t complain.

“Not bad,” I say as we complete the first circuit and start around the block a second time.

“Maybe I can’t press, whatever that is, but I’m not a complete fat-ass.” Anger spills from her voice.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Most people do.” She shrugs and looks down at the ground. She acts the way Mom did after the fire convinced her she was ugly.

“Head up when you run. And look at a guy when you talk to him.”

She lets out a noisy breath, but lifts her head. “I’m still trying to work on that. Comes with feeling out of place. Life is easier if you’re slim, beautiful, and short.”

“I’m taller than you.”

“And you’re a guy, so it’s all good. I’m the biggest girl in school, except for some members of the girls’ basketball team.”

“Why don’t you join?”

“The coach actually stalks me, but I’m an awful player. My brother tried teaching me, but even he had to give up.” She lifts her hands. “See, both lefties. I never really wanted to play. I just went to games because I liked watching my brother.”

“And Julian.” I’m careful to keep my face blank and my voice smooth. I see the two of them together all the time. Barney and Julian are in the same English class, and they eat lunch together. They walk together in the halls, and her dimples show when she smiles at him.

“Julian, too. He’s my friend.”

I close my mouth to keep from asking what she considers me.

We finish our second circuit. When we reach the entrance again, I take her back inside to the door of the Outlet.

“Are you sure you’re serious enough to keep with this for the long haul?” I ask before I open the door.

“Absolutely.”

“Don’t answer so fast. You have to keep running like this to train your heart. You’ll need weight training, and not just once in a while, or only when you feel like it. You’ll pump iron, run a thousand laps, do pushups, sit-ups, crunches. You’ll punch a bag that feels like a brick wall until your knuckles bleed or your shoulders give out, or both. You’ll take hits and be knocked down and end up hurting worse than you do now. And when you’ve done all that, you still won’t be able to take that guy down, or anyone like him.”

“Why not? When I get training—”

“You’ll know enough to get him mad enough to really kick your ass.”

“Are you such a rotten teacher?”

“Any of the guys in there will tell you the same thing. Why do you think so few girls ever step inside that door?”

“Because of the smell?”

I don’t do the near-naked chest look Ed loves, but I flex my arms to give Barney a good view of my muscles. “Testosterone. We guys get the muscles you never will.” I grab her wrists again. She tries to pull away from me and fails, again. I have to make her understand that she needs to keep clear of the Enforcers. “In the end, a big guy will destroy you, because we’re stronger and we like to win. Boxing lessons won’t change that.”

Her breathing grows faster. Her chest pumps in a way that makes me remember girls do have a secret weapon of their own. A kiss, a touch, hell, even a smile, and estrogen wins.

“Barney…” I release her and step back.

“I have to do something.” Her face is all grim determination. “I don’t intend on being manhandled again. I’m tired of being pushed around by guys. You, my brother—”

“Saint David bosses you around?”

“Everyone bosses me, but I’m going to do this.” She tosses her head and marches inside the Outlet. I surrender and follow her.

***

B. A. Binns writes to attract and inspire young male readers with stories of “real boys growing into real men…and the people who love them.” This Chicago native graduated from Hyde Park High School and went on to receive advanced degrees from both Roosevelt and DePaul Universities, and then honed her writing skills at Chicago State University and Harper College. Ms. Binns finds writing a major exercise in self-discipline, and the perfect follow-up to her life as an adoptive parent and cancer survivor. She is a member of RWA (Romance Writers of America), the Chicago Writers Association, SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators), ALAN (Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of NCTE) and YALSA (Young Adult Library Association). Being God is her second novel, the first, Pull, won a National Readers Choice Award, and was named to the YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Readers and the ALA Best Books for Youth In Detention lists. Pull was also nominated for the 2012-2013 Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award.

Contact the author via email at: binns@babinns.com
Visit the author at her website http://www.babinns.com or blog – http://barbarabinns.com or via facebook http://facebook.com/allthecolorsoflove

Being God is available at Amazon in paperback http://www.amazon.com/Being-God-B-A-Binns/dp/0988182114 and Kindle http://www.amazon.com/Being-God-ebook/dp/B00B9EWAEK formats

 

Excerpt From “Scraps of Paper — Revised Author’s Edition” by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

Abigail Sutton’s beloved husband walks out one night, doesn’t return, and two years later is found dead, a victim of a long ago crime. It’s made her sympathetic to the missing and their families.

Starting her new life, Abigail moves to small town and buys a fixer-upper house left empty when old Edna Summers died. Once it was also home to Edna’s younger sister, Emily, and her two children, Jenny and Christopher, who, people believe, drove away one night, thirty years ago, and just never came back.

But in renovating the house Abigail finds scraps of paper hidden behind baseboards and tucked beneath the porch that hint the three could have been victims of foul play.

Then she finds their graves hidden in the woods behind the house and with the help of eccentric townspeople and ex-homicide detective, Frank Lester, she discovers the three were murdered. Then she and Frank try to uncover who killed them and why…but in the process awaken the ire of the murderer.

EXCERPT:

While cleaning the baseboard in the living room, she noticed it was loose and had the hammer in her hand ready to nail it down again when she spied a scrap of paper sticking out from behind the piece of wood.
Such a simple act, yanking at that slip of paper, but it would change everything. Pulling it carefully from its hiding place, she saw it was a tightly folded and yellowed scrap of white paper laced in spider webs and dust. The sort of white drawing paper she used to sketch on as a child. She unfolded it slowly. There was printing on it, bright red crayon scribbling as a child might do. At first Abigail wasn’t sure what it was. Then she looked closer and read:

ME AND CHRIS ARE SO SCARED. HE WAS MEAN TO MOMMY AGAIN, MADE HER CRY. HURT HER. WE HATE HIM!!! in a childish scrawl. There was a J at the bottom.

She stared at the scrap of paper and reread it. It was obviously old. No telling how long it’d been behind the baseboard. She refolded it and tucked it into a compartment of her purse. The two children’s names who’d once lived there, if she recalled correctly, had been Christopher and…Jenny. Amazing, the note could have been from them. How strange, after all these years, for her to find it. But who was HE?

Abigail couldn’t stop dwelling on the note as she resumed her work. She made it a point to search for other scraps of paper sticking out from hidden places. A treasure hunt. By the early evening, when she had to quit painting for the day because her body refused to move, she’d uncovered yet another scrawled note in red crayon, all caps, similar to the first one from under the baseboards.

It said: WE WENT TO BED AGAIN WITHOUT SUPPER. SHE WAS MAD. I AM SO HUNGRY. C

Was it from Christopher? She put the note in her purse with the other one. She was trying not to feel sorrow for the mistreated children. After all it had been so long ago. But she couldn’t stop thinking about them and what these notes meant. Had they been abused and in danger? From whom? And why should it bother her so?

***

Since childhood Kathryn Meyer Griffith has been an artist and worked as a graphic designer in the corporate world and for newspapers for twenty-three years before quitting to write full time. She began writing novels at 21, over forty years ago now, and have had sixteen (nine romantic horror, two romantic SF horror, one romantic suspense, one romantic time travel and two murder mysteries) previous novels and eight short stories published from Zebra Books, Leisure Books, Avalon Books, The Wild Rose Press, Damnation Books and Eternal Press.

Kathryn has been married to Russell for thirty-four years; has a son, James, and two grandchildren, Joshua and Caitlyn, and lives in a small quaint town in Illinois called Columbia, which is right across the JB Bridge from St. Louis, Mo.

All Kathryn Meyer Griffith’s Books available at Amazon.com here: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Kathryn+Meyer+Griffith

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B1W4A2K