False World by JJ Dare

The second book in the Joe Daniels’ trilogy continues where False Positive ends as Joe continues his mission to destroy those who have destroyed his life. As the world changes, Joe’s search for justice takes on a global urgency and he races to find answers before deadly answers find him. 

Beginning in a secluded town in the middle of nowhere, it is not long before Joe is traveling across the country and, ultimately, across a collapsing world on his quest for vengeance. 

The world is not what you see. 

And neither is Joe.

False World is available from: Second Wind Publishing, LLC

Excerpt from False World by J J Dare: 

Joe felt more and more like Alice in Wonderland as the day passed.

When he walked into the Citizens’ Identity Office, his first thought was he had walked into Utopia. When the caseworker assigned to him asked him to roll up his sleeves, Joe just looked at him.

“Identifying marks, sir,” the office jockey said. “If you’ve been in the service, you’re granted carte blanche privileges within the scope of the new laws.”

Rolling up his sleeves, the worker looked at Joe’s military tattoos and smiled as he nodded.

“I could tell by you’re bearing, sir, that you were either army or marine,” he said as he filled out the paperwork for Joe’s new identity card. “I’ll have you out of here in just a few minutes, sir.

“If you’d like to register your firearms now, I could expedite that for you, too.” The worker looked sharply at Joe as he continued. “You do pack, don’t you, sir?”

Joe laughed as he told the desk jockey, “Hell, yeah.”

As the worker relaxed, Joe again wondered what rabbit hole he had dropped into. People required to carry firearms, military given prestige above non-military, and Texas the capital of the country.

Well, whatever psycho civilization he had wandered into, he liked it.

“Sir, this is your new identity card. If you lose it, you’ll be issued a new one and the old one will deactivate. All of your information is stored on a chip inside the card and in our database. As military, you already have five thousand credits, which equals roughly a dollar per credit.”

Holding up the Joe’s new identity card, the worker continued. “As a citizen of the new United States of the Americas, you swear to uphold the laws of the military and of the government. You swear to be vigilant and to protect yourself and other citizens against those outside of our nation. You swear to be vigilant and to protect your fellow citizens should the need arise.”

The worker looked at Joe and waited. Joe looked back at him.

“You’re supposed to agree, sir,” the worker said.

“Oh,” Joe replied. “I agree to everything.”

“Thank you, sir. Now, if you’d just sign your full name, Mr. Daniels, you can be on your way.”

Joe signed the papers, pocketed his new identity card, took back his guns, and left.

In the open air, he was waiting for someone to come after him. Of all the things he had imagined might be going on in the world while he was in seclusion, this was not one of them.

The world was not was it seemed. Now, the world he thought he had known was radically different. Climbing into his truck, he realized that, more than anything, the tattoos he wore carried more weight in this new country than anything in his pockets.

A month ago when he had gone with Liz into the survivalists’ camp, the United States had been a country pandering to too many special interests, too many foreign countries, and too many lost causes.

The country he had stepped back into was a far cry from the namby-pamby one he had known. It was now the United we’ll-kick-your-ass States of the Americas.

***

J J Dare lives in a small, sleepy town with family and pets. Having visited many parts of the country, Dare has woven these places into stories and these stories have been incorporated into novels. 

Writing since the age of seven, the love of the written word has kept Dare grounded in the curiousity-laden world of writers. Constantly thinking what if?, has given Dare the seed for many stories.

 The first stories published by Dare were written for Rutger Hauer’s website many years ago. Since that time, other short stories have been published academically and in mainstream fiction. 

Excerpt from IMAGES OF BETRAYAL by Claire Collins

Abandoned by her family, Tysan works as a waitress in a cheap diner. One cold evening, a beguiling, rugged young man barges into her life. He possesses the remarkable ability to take photographs of events that have not yet happened. Ty narrowly avoids a harrowing death in a disastrous explosion, only to be drawn into a dizzying cascade of conflicts involving a new family that takes her in, Walker-her apparent savior, David-her new admirer and her own family. Kidnapping, betrayal, obsessive love and courageous lovers co-mingle in this romantic thriller.

Excerpt:

His eyes darted to the envelope on the table. He took a drink of coffee, swallowing too hard. When he turned back to me, his eyes were haunted. He reached out, grasped the envelope, and pulled out another picture. As he handed it to me, his words registered.

“You’re supposed to keep yourself safe.”

The photo I held was taken in the restaurant. I was standing behind the front counter, the picture taken from across the room. A man sat in front of me, only the back of his head visible in the picture. He was covered in soot and ashes. Pieces of his clothing were burned away and blackened. My skin was blistered and the remnants of my hair were singed. My uniform had burned to my body, sticking to me as I stood there, coffee pot in hand. The ceiling of the restaurant was behind me, or at least part of it. Grey, cloudy skies formed a backdrop where some of the ceiling and the wall to the kitchen used to be. The pieces of the restaurant in the picture were burnt; smoke still rising from the embers surrounding me.

The picture was dated two days from today.I dropped the picture like the paper itself was on fire. I didn’t want to touch it. In the photo, I stood there with a coffee pot in my hand, while everything around me and my clothes were in utter destruction. Walker snatched the picture from the table, dropping it back into the envelope.

“I’m sorry,” he said, taking my hand in his again. “Short of kidnapping you that day, I didn’t know any other way to tell you about this.”

***

Claire Collins resides in North Carolina and writes across many genres. She loves reading when she gets the time around her family and her work schedule. She currently has two novels available through Second Wind Publishing and is working on her third, Seeds of September. 

 

Click here to buy: Images of Betrayal

Excerpt from “To Hell In a Handbasket” by Beth Groundwater

It’s snow accident when a young woman’s icy demise sends Claire’s vacation to hell in a handbasket.

Skiing with her family in Breckenridge, Colorado, gift basket designer Claire Hanover hears a terrified scream cut the frigid mountain air. She is horror-stricken to find Stephanie Contino, the sister of her daughter’s boyfriend, dead on the slopes. While everyone else assumes the death was an accident, Claire is suspicious of the extra ski tracks that cross dangerously into Stephanie’s path. But the police are skeptical of foul play, even as more signs point to murder. When incriminating clues put her daughter Judy in danger, Claire investigates and finds trouble around every mogul. Between interviewing a daredevil snowboarder and giving ski lessons to a drug boss, she uncovers a chilling conspiracy that could turn deadly for her family.

EXCERPT:

Claire Hanover’s knees slammed up toward her chest. She shoved them down and around the mogul and braced for the next impact. Oof! Then the next and the next. All she could hear were her labored breaths and her skis swishing through three inches of Colorado champagne powder sprinkled over the bumps of packed snow.

Her body lurched, thrown back on her skis. Punching out with her fist, she drove her downhill knee forward to regain her balance. It screamed in protest. She stabbed her ski pole into another mogul and swung around it. Three more turns, she promised her forty-six-year-old knees. Then we’ll rest.

After rounding three more body-sized bumps, she hockey-stopped in a soft patch of loose snow. Leaning forward on her poles, she eased the pressure on her knees. They stopped cursing her for pushing them so hard during her first day on skis in months. The pain slowly receded. She sucked in gasps of clean, cold air, unzipped her jacket a few inches to cool off, and glanced uphill.

The T-bar was no longer in view, inching its way above the tree line on Peak Eight of the Breckenridge ski resort. The smooth upper slope of Ptarmigan, the easiest black diamond run north of the T-bar, sparkled in the brilliant sunshine of a cloudless March sky. Claire had carved pretty S-turns up there, but when the slope plunged into the trees, growing steeper, the resulting moguls thrown up by countless skiers had forced her to sacrifice her grace. Now she was in survival mode.

She looked downhill. Three skiers stood off to the left below the mogul field, waiting with faces upturned toward her. Her husband, Roger, would be secretly grateful for the opportunity to rest, but Judy, her twenty-one-year-old daughter, and Judy’s companion, Stephanie, would be anxious to move on.

Claire took a deep breath and pushed off.

***

Bestselling mystery author Beth Groundwater writes the Claire Hanover gift basket designer series (A Real Basket Case, a Best First Novel Agatha Award finalist, and To Hell in a Handbasket) and the Rocky Mountain Outdoor Adventures series starring whitewater river ranger Mandy Tanner (Deadly Currents, an Amazon bestseller, and Wicked Eddies). The third books in both series will appear in 2013. Beth enjoys Colorado’s many outdoor activities, including skiing and whitewater rafting, and loves talking to book clubs. Please visit her website: http://bethgroundwater.com/

Excerpt from “Wicked Eddies” by Beth Groundwater

WICKED EDDIES is book two in the RM Outdoor Adventure Mystery series by Agatha Award finalist Beth Groundwater.

Fly fishing is dangerous? River ranger Mandy Tanner had no idea until days before a huge tournament in Salida, Colorado. True, the Arkansas River can be a man-eater, but the rapids weren’t responsible for driving a hatchet into the neck of would-be competitor Howie Abbott—a secretive man who may have been cheating. While casting about for suspects, Mandy seeks clues from Abbott’s family members, including her best friend, bartender Cynthia Abbott. But when Cynthia becomes the prime suspect, Mandy realizes that trolling for the true killer has plunged her way too deep into wicked eddies.

EXCERPT:

A shiny black raven shot a raucous caw toward the blue whitewater raft that nudged its nose into the Arkansas River bank. Disturbed, the bird flapped its wide wings and swooped to another large peachleaf willow farther downstream, where it scolded the two interlopers in the raft.

Ignoring the Native American’s keeper of secrets, Mandy Tanner stowed her bow paddle and stepped out onto the muddy bank. She planted a sandaled foot against an exposed sandbar willow root to keep from slipping then pulled on the bow line to beach the raft.

The stern paddler, Steve Hadley, her boss and the chief river ranger of the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area, swept his paddle in the calm water of the eddy to give her an assist.

Mandy secured the bowline to a nearby wooden post sunk into the river’s shoreline at the Vallie Bridge campground for just that purpose. Then she stretched and drank in the sight of the collegiate range of the Colorado Rockies to the east. The 14,000 foot-plus peaks of Mt. Harvard, Mt. Oxford, Mt. Yale, Mt. Princeton and Mt. Columbia knifed into the clear blue sky. Mandy reluctantly dragged her gaze down to the muddy earth and held the raft still for her boss.

“This should be an easy clean-up,” Steve said while he clambered out of the raft.

Since the campground was solely walk-in or boat-in access, it had only sixteen primitive tent campsites partly shaded by four large peachtree willows. Even the pit toilets were located at the day use area next to the road about a hundred yards away. Vallie Bridge was the least used of the six campgrounds maintained by the AHRA.

“So you only assign yourself the easy ones?” Mandy flashed a teasing grin at Steve.

Of course, as Steve’s partner on this end-of-the summer trash pickup excursion, she benefited from the light assignment, too. Usually she got the worst grunt work and shifts, this being her first season as a river ranger. That meant a lot of sweaty tree and brush removal and busy weekend river patrols dealing with clueless, and often inebriated, tourists.

“Seniority has its privileges.” Steve unzipped his personal floatation device, shucked it and tossed it into the raft. The short sleeves of his dark green ranger shirt exposed well-tanned and muscled arms.

Heat waves shimmered off the parched ground. Mandy followed Steve’s lead, removing her PFD and lifting her blond ponytail off her damp neck. An early September Monday in Chaffee County, this one was showing signs of being a record-breaking scorcher. While Steve took a long pull on his water bottle, Mandy shielded her eyes from the sun’s glare and scanned the Vallie Bridge campground. All the tent sites looked deserted.

With the annoyed raven now quiet, the only sound was the hot wind soughing through the nearby willow trees, bringing with it the scent of baking dry vegetation, and something else…

Mandy wrinkled her nose. “Something smells rank.”

***

Bestselling mystery author Beth Groundwater writes the Claire Hanover gift basket designer series (A Real Basket Case, a Best First Novel Agatha Award finalist, and To Hell in a Handbasket) and the Rocky Mountain Outdoor Adventures series starring whitewater river ranger Mandy Tanner (Deadly Currents, an Amazon bestseller, and Wicked Eddies). The third books in both series will appear in 2013. Beth enjoys Colorado’s many outdoor activities, including skiing and whitewater rafting, and loves talking to book clubs. Please visit her website: http://bethgroundwater.com/

Excerpt From “The Boon: Thoughts of a Schizophrenic in Remission” by Eugene Uttley

Hi, Pat. Very Kind of you to offer to post excerpts! I have just self-published a book entitled The Boon: Thoughts of a Schizophrenic in Remission… not scary! The experience of late onset schizophrenia and a year-long psychotic break was scary, yes, but I have emerged stable and the wiser for it. The book is available on Amazon. Here’s a link –> http://www.amazon.com/dp/1481233947/ref=rdr_ext_book or check out http://showandtell.tripod.com for other options. What excerpt to show here… hmm… okay here goes:

Looking again at Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, his many steps in the hero’s journey, I come to the step called The Ultimate Boon. It is the penultimate step in the quest, the achievement of the goal, the winning of the prize. It is not the end; there are five or six steps after it, including The Crossing of the Return Threshhold and The Freedom to Live, which is overcoming the fear of death. But what Campbell says about The Ultimate Boon is very interesting. It’s about God (or gods and goddesses) being the custodian of the prize. He says what the hero finds himself seeking is not God, but God’s grace, a “sustaining substance”:

“This miraculous energy-substance and this alone is the Imperishable; the names and forms of the deities who everywhere embody, dispense, and represent it come and go. This is the miraculous energy of the thunderbolts of Zeus, Yahweh, and the Supreme Buddha, the fertility of the rain of Viracocha, the virtue announced by the bell rung in the Mass at the consecration, and the light of the ultimate illumination of the saint and sage. Its guardians dare release it only to the duly proven.”

I have the sense of having proven myself. Not to any mystical guardians or even to God, but to myself. I lasted the course of my year-long psychotic break and, like Job, I did not blame or curse God or my fate. I countenanced the loss of my station, my ability to work – and of practically all my possessions – with fairly good humor and temperament, if I do say so myself. And after I had endured the mental and spiritual maelstrom long enough, say nine months, I dedicated all my energies to making myself well. I had whipped myself into decently good shape by the time I finally sought professional help. All the medical people I’ve come into contact with and told my story to congratulate me on the work I’ve done to overcome my symptoms, and I take those congratulations to heart. Taming the lions of dysfunctional thinking, mastering and shepherding oneself, is not an easy task. Now I’ve just about got myself jumping through hoops.
By the grace of God, I know what I want. You guessed it: to be whole. To be mentally and spiritually whole and to cultivate an ever-keener awareness of connectedness to the greater whole. I’m not saying I’ve accomplished these goals. In fact. I’m pretty sure they’re not the kind of goals one ever quite achieves. But knowing them as goals, and being in the process of working towards them is sweet relief from the restlessness of heart I had as a youth. It’s a hollow feeling, not knowing what you want. To know is to have that hollowness filled, that vacant space occupied by a worthy ideal. Wisdom warns against desire, but there is power in wanting, power that can fuel the will and keep lit that precious torch, hope.

INvoke
knowing is hard to trust
for facts take faith
and faith I find
in short supply
but ficts I got
in spades

Thisclaimer
Now and again am I
of a mind to write
yet what have I to describe
who have known but a moment
of no moment and none
other than this?

In these two poems from the old chapbook, I see the aimlessness I felt at that time. Obviously it irked me enough to spur me to write about it. No facts, just ficts. Those ficts became trouble. Being delusional was like living fiction. Now, with faith, facts are easier to come by. Faith is a foundation, a solid base on which to build. In Thisclaimer there is a humility I like, but also that aimlessness. “What have I to describe?” Why, the workings of my mind! The goofy profundity of selected great works and the glorious trivia of the day-to-day here in the vale of Soul-making. I wish I had written more about my life in Korea while I was there. Which tells me I should write more about now, as I live it.

–end of excerpt–

A little explanation.. “The old chapbook” is a collection of poetry, prose, and dialogue which was written in the years leading up to my onset of schizophrenia. A good deal of this material made it into The Boon as I explored my mindset before becoming ill. The “vale of Soul-making” is a reference to a letter written by John Keats, which is discussed more thoroughly elsewhere in The Boon.

So yeah, Pat, thanks for inviting us to participate in your blog and thanks for supporting indie books!

Cheers,
Eugene Uttley

Excerpt from “Vigil Annie” by Lia Fairchild

Annie Crawford is an ex-cop living a double life. After her fiancé is murdered and she is left for dead, a desperate Annie steps outside the law to seek vengeance. She turns to a vigilante agency headed by a man with his own secrets. Annie must work for them as they investigate the murder and help her find the answers she needs.

Now working on the wrong side of the law, Annie’s life has one purpose: justice. Justice for her fiancé and for the city she lives in. But as Annie’s taste for the vigilante life grows, the agency struggles to control her, putting everyone involved at risk. And the deeper she sinks into this new unsavory life the more she fears she may never return.

EXCERPT:

The dusk sky loomed heavy over inner city Detroit as she parked her crimson sports car in the empty lot. She hoped she wasn’t too late. The hem of her white coat scraped the ground as she got out and took a quick look around. Then she raised her hood to cover her long black hair. She walked toward the church doors, her four-inch heeled boots tapping against the neglected pavement. Her coat fluttered against the light breeze, so she pulled the front over her body, attempting to keep her clothing hidden.

It seemed her visits to church had become an unsuccessful ritual, but she kept them up. She knew no other way. She needed to seek forgiveness for what she was about to do; for this new life she led. She paused for a brief moment in the doorway before walking down the aisle. Her thoughts drifted to his beautiful face, but her attempt to stay focused on him was futile.

Annie pushed aside her yearning to be back in the life she once knew, found her usual spot in the back, and sat down. The church was as empty as the parking lot, but the haunting silence calmed her, just as it had when she was a young girl. Gazing up at the enormous cross on the front altar, a single tear made its way down her cheek. There was no point in wiping it away. The realization of her destiny would surely bring more tears, but she would fight them for as long as it took. Annie Crawford was ready. There was no turning back.

***

Annie flung open the church doors, heading back to the parking lot. She whipped off her coat, feeling relief in the smoothness of suede leather shorts and matching halter top. Her hair was pulled back into a low ponytail out of necessity. At her car, she tossed her coat in the passenger seat and slammed the door. She stood for a moment, scanning the nearby area. The moon made no appearance on this night, staying hidden behind ominous clouds. The rustle of the leaves in the trees sounded like a thousand tiny hands clapping. At last, she sucked in a deep breath and headed down the street on foot. A chill pricked her skin and it had nothing to do with the cool night breeze. Annie picked up her pace and soon arrived at her destination only a few blocks south of the church.

The club was bustling as always. People dressed to impress were lined up outside, waiting impatiently to go in. Music pumped through the walls, spilled out to the street like a torn bag of grain.

Annie walked past the line and over to the bouncer, whispering briefly in his ear. As she passed him to enter the club, he stared in appreciation for her toned body.

A man at the bar dressed in a charcoal colored suit caught her eye, and she made her way over to him. While the man spoke to her, she examined the crowded club. It had all the ingredients of a typical party scene. Inebriated dancers packed the dance floor while lonely singles mingled at the edges. For a split second she wished she was one of those carefree women who’d had a few: laughing, talking, forgetting their troubles. It wasn’t that long ago that she had been one of them, enjoying a life of freedom. Annie wondered if she would ever feel that way again. She gave the man a confirming nod and headed to the back of the club.

She was so focused on her mission that the music faded into the background, like a nagging wife during a playoff game. Annie stared straight ahead, pushing past crowds of people, and approached a table where three men sat together. She could already hear them as she got closer to the table. One of them glanced up with an impish grin. “Whoa! Check it out!” He raised an empty glass. “Hey, sweet thing. We’ll take another round.”

“I’m not your waitress,” she said flatly. “Which one of you is Frank Tappa?” Her tone and stature made all three men straighten in their seats. They smiled and exchanged glances as if it were an episode of The Dating Game.

“I’m Frank. Who’s asking?” said the man on the left. He had black hair, a little more than a five o’clock shadow, and wore a mechanic’s work shirt.

“Follow me out and you’ll find out.”

That response elicited whoops and high-fives between the other two men. The blue-collar grease monkey rose from the table in triumph. “I’d follow you anywhere, baby!”

Annie left him there, ignoring his comment. She glanced back to find him giving his friends a thumbs-up before he ran to catch up with her. Typical.

“Hey, what’s going on?” he said when he reached her. “I mean I don’t wanna seem ungrateful, but it ain’t even my birthday or anything.”

The mix of arrogance and ignorance wormed its way under Annie’s skin as they plodded toward the door. Through gritted teeth, she blurted out, “August 18th, Detroit. That ring a bell, asshole?

Looking confused and still trying to keep her pace, he responded, “Shit! What the fuck do you know about that?”

Annie stopped, glared down at his barely five-foot-nine frame.

“Pretty much everything; right down to the color underwear you had on when you robbed that bank and killed a customer in front of her eight-year-old kid. Not to mention your other…exploits.”

“That was an accident, I swear.” The idiot was either too drunk or too stupid to keep his mouth shut. He continued to plead his case. “Everyone was freaking out. Her kid was crying. She ran. I didn’t know what to do. I was only trying to stop her, and the gun went off.” Then, like a shot, Frank Tappa bolted for the door.

Damn! Her jaw tightened, her heart quickened. Why hadn’t she waited until he was secure?

Annie chased him through the crowd, shoving past those that blocked her way. She was able to grab the back of his jacket before he stumbled out the front door, but he managed to squirm out of it. He ran down the street toward the church. It would be a challenge to catch him in boots, but she’d done it before. The loser was smashed, anyway. Luckily, he was slowed by a group of people and lost his balance, sending him to the ground on all fours. When Annie caught up, she locked him in a choke hold with one arm, twisted his arm behind his back with the other.

“Bitch, you better get off me!” He let out a loud growl and began squirming around. His head whipped back, slammed into her nose, causing her to loosen her grip. He broke loose from her and they began to fight. A few passers-by stopped, but no one interfered. In certain parts of the city, you could rob a store and ask someone to hold your cell while you stuffed the cash in your pocket.

Annie wouldn’t need a hero stepping in, tonight. She landed kicks to his stomach and shoulder, the heel of her boot grinding against his bones. Frank flailed, clung to her body like a beaten boxer. He grabbed for her neck, choking the hell out of her until she broke free. Then he threw a lucky punch to her shoulder blade when she was distracted by a horn from a passing car. But adrenaline pushed her through the pain and a final kick to his stomach sent him reeling to the ground. Frank coughed, blood dripping from his mouth, and raised a hand in surrender.

Annie suppressed her smile.

Bending down, she reached into her boot, grabbed a pair of handcuffs. As she slapped them on his wrists, she glanced back to a couple that still lingered around.

“Out of here! Both of you. Now!”

It wasn’t much further to the car, so Annie led him back toward the church parking lot. The street was pitch-black and eerily silent. Their feet shuffled across uneven cement, echoing off graffiti clad walls.

“Where are you taking me?” Frank asked weakly.

“Shut up and walk.” The route back to the car seemed longer now as she trailed behind this lowlife, but she would be rid of him soon. One more offender taken off the streets. This city claimed one of the highest crime rates in the country. Working with the Agency, and on her own, she’d taken down more criminals in the past six months than in all of her time on the force. But the ones that eluded her were the ones that meant the most. She still hadn’t heard anything concrete from the Agency about Michael’s killer. They’d have some answers for her soon or things would change.

“Who are you?” He tried to turn around to get another look at her. He squinted and shook his head as if he dreamt up the woman who had beaten the crap out of him.

Annie shoved his head forward. “Keep walking.”

Once she got him in the car, she headed back toward the main street. He slumped in the back seat, hands behind his back. He didn’t bother to speak during the ten minute drive to the drop off location, or maybe he just didn’t have the strength.

Annie pulled into an alley about five minutes ahead of schedule. A woman leaned against a dilapidated building. She watched as Annie got out, walked around to the other side of the car and pulled Frank out. His hands were still cuffed and he had to struggle to keep from falling. Annie made eye contact with the haggard street woman but neither spoke. The woman had no expression. Then, for no apparent reason, the woman walked over to Annie and Frank. She stood there staring at as Annie cuffed Frank’s arms to a sign post. “No Dumping.” She enjoyed the irony of it.

“What the hell is this crap?” the woman finally said, her head jerked to one side. A green sequined skirt revealed white legs, thin as two slats of a ladder.

From her back pocket Annie pulled out a twenty dollar bill. “Don’t worry about it.” She handed the bill to the woman.

Confused, the woman took it and watched as Annie walked back to her car.

“Uh, what am I supposed to do?” the woman said.

“Nothing.” Annie said over the top of the car.

“You can’t leave me here,” the man yelled as he tried to get to his knees.

“They’ll be here for you soon.”

She got in the car and caught a glimpse of her hazel eyes peering back at her in the review mirror. She still held the physical beauty that had elicited head turns her whole life, but recent trauma had aged her more than she expected. More than she noticed, until then. And something was missing in the reflection. There was an emptiness housed in the stranger she’d become.

Before she pulled away from the curb, Annie checked back at her captive. Complete bafflement spread across his face as she drove off down the street.

Once again she had been successful in her mission. She let out a cleansing breath as she sunk back in her seat. But the doubts started to creep in, and she questioned the validity of this new life. A life so foreign from traditional law enforcement, but one that was necessary in this world. A world that had taken both her father and her fiancé. For a brief instant in time, love had shown her things could be different. Annie had seen a glimmer of hope, the dream of a life filled with happiness and love. And the possibility that this forgotten city had a chance for redemption. But that had turned out to be fantasy. A fantasy that was ripped away from her before she had time to appreciate it. Now she was left trying to survive on her own. Attempting to right wrongs, even if she had to do it outside of the law. But I can stop anytime I want, she told herself once again. Then, as it always did, reality sank in like an anchor in sand. She knew she would not be able to stop until justice was served. Her justice.

***

Lia Fairchild has been been creating stories her whole life, but only for herself, in her own head. Then one day she sat down and started to write a book. Lia completed her first novel, In Search of Lucy, in February of 2011. Seven months later, AmazonEncore contacted Lia about representing her book. It’s currently in the top 20 for Kindle Drama.

Lia recently completed her second full-length novel, this time a thriller. Vigil Annie is now available on Amazon! One reviewer called it “suspenseful, well-crafted, and fast paced.”

Lia is also the author of a mystery series (A Hint of Murder) and a short, sweet romance (Special Delivery).

She was born and raised in Southern California and hold a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a multiple subject teaching credential. She’s also a wife and mother of two teenagers.

Website: http://www.liafairchild.com
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/#!/liafairchild
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/lia.fairchild.author?fref=ts

Vigil Annie available from:
Amazon US http://ow.ly/eZOMC
Amazon UK http://ow.ly/eZPoK
Barnes and Noble http://ow.ly/eZOOr

Excerpt From “Why the World Doesn’t Seem to Make Sense: An Inquiry into Science, Philosophy, and Perception” by Steve Hagen

Why the World Doesn’t Seem to Make Sense is an eminently down-to-earth, practical, and non-technical response to the urgent questions posed by contemporary science and philosophy. This book aims for an intelligent general audience. It does not require readers to have any familiarity with modern or classical physics, philosophy, formal logic, or any other specific body of knowledge. The book takes the reader on a journey that examines our most basic assumptions about reality; focuses on fundamental questions of knowledge, perception, and belief, both in the light of quantum research (which yields contradictions) and ancient wisdom (which anticipated such contradictions); and ultimately suggests not only a new way of seeing the world, but a set of practical and ethical principles for living in it and experiencing it, free of mind-boggling contradiction. Why the World Doesn’t Seem to Make Sense addresses the two-not-two paradox that other works only identify. It is through reliance on perception rather than conception that we have an opportunity to resolve this essential paradox, and through which we can establish an effective moral, philosophical, and intellectual framework for living our lives. The primary purpose of this book is to help readers learn to perceive the world directly — as it is, not how they conceive it to be. It is through this perception that each of us can answer profound moral questions, resolve philosophical and ethical dilemmas, and live lives of harmony and joy.

EXCERPT

The Trouble with Believing

When I was a child I lived on the side of a hill. It was a broad, grassy escarpment, furrowed by wooded gullies and pierced by outcrops of gabbro, and it rose high behind the houses of my neighborhood. I was told by adults that unicorns romped in those hills.

I don’t think I ever believed this, however. My friends and I often hiked there, and we never saw any unicorns. Besides, there was something in the eyes of the adults—a bit of glee, perhaps—that made them seem less than convinced of their own story.

The question of unicorns, of course, was never a serious one. But I was told other things—things that, even to the adults, were clearly not meant to be far-fetched. These stories were not so easily dispelled, for many people believed them. And I used to wonder, what was required for me to believe?

I was raised in a strict Christian home where religion was a daily mat­ter of serious concern. I was brought up to believe that Christ was my personal Savior. This belief was of extreme importance to me as a child, because I was told that in order to be saved from eternal damnation, all I had to do was to believe in Jesus.

Well, I certainly did not want to be damned for eternity, so I was very motivated to believe what I had been told. But there was something enigmatic about the proposition. I wasn’t sure just what it was I was supposed to do—that is, will myself to do. What was my responsibility? If belief was, as it seemed to be, a moral question, what was I to be held accountable for? As it was presented to me it seemed rather easy. “Just believe,” I was told, “and you’ll be saved.” Just believe—but what could this possibly mean? Surely not just to say that I believed.

The incident that brought this matter to a head occurred when I discovered that my church frowned on the idea of evolution. I had, by the age of twelve, become convinced through my readings that the theory of evolution explained clearly how life occurred and developed on this planet. Suddenly, I discovered that my belief regarding evolution was in direct conflict with my religious instruction. I was in a quandary, for I did not wish to be damned, yet I could not choose to believe as my church would have me believe. I didn’t know what to do.

I knew, I was to be honest with myself (and I was taught, and believed in, the importance of being honest), that deep down I truly did not believe. To believe in creationism, I would have had to dismiss other things from my mind that I already knew (believed, really) and understood as valid. I was not at liberty to simply start believing any notion that others happened to declare was true, correct, proper or necessary. In other words, I was powerless to make myself believe what I—or others—would want me to believe.

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Steve Hagen has been a student of Buddhist thought and practice since 1967. He became a student of Dainin Katagiri Roshi in 1975, and continued on to be ordained a Zen priest by Katagiri Roshi in 1979. He has studied with teachers in the U.S., Asia, and Europe, and in 1989 received Dharma transmission (the endorsement to teach) from Katagiri Roshi. Steve founded the Dharma Field Meditation and Learning Center (www.dharmafield.org) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he lives. He currently maintains an active role as the head teacher at the center, where he leads classes, meditations, sesshins and more. He has written four books that help to clarify Buddhism, and his Buddhism Plain and Simple is among the bestselling books on the subject.

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