Book Excerpt: Fezariu’s Epiphany by David Brown

Title: Fezariu’s Epiphany
Author: David Brown
Genre: Fantasy
Hardcover: 386 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-1456500597

The White Oak, Clarendon’s oldest brothel, lured and destroyed men by the thousands. Fezariu was different. He had never been drawn by the White Oak’s vices but the brothel had still ruined him when he was just a boy.

Salvation came in the form of the Merelax Mercenaries – Elenchera’s most prestigious hired hands. They gave Fezariu the chance to escape from his past. Immersed in the world of dangerous assignments in the colonies Fezariu longed to forget everything about his childhood but only in facing the past would he ever be free of it.

CHAPTER ONE: THE WHITE OAK
Clarendon was to be found in southern Odrica, its inhabitants always with one eye fixed north on Sincerity – the pristine and judicious capital that was the centre of all that made the island the dominant force it was today. Clarendon’s malevolence towards Sincerity was born not of envy but lamentation for its own glorious past.
When Odrica had first been settled, Sincerity was founded as the island’s capital but it lost its status in 3270 amidst a successful invasion by Beruvian forces from overseas. Clarendon was designated as Odrica’s new capital until 4406 when the island was further divided into earldoms and duchies. Clarendon then stood as the proud centre of Molkonia, the most powerful division on the island and retained its status when the duchy was later extended into a kingdom in 12664.
The rise from obscurity of the enigmatic rebel leader, Merzara, saw Odrica united once again under a solitary ruler in 13962. When Merzara was crowned as the first king of Odrica for more than nine thousand years all thoughts turned to which city would be the island’s capital. It was obvious the honour would fall to either Clarendon or Sincerity and inhabitants from both cities began vying for the new king’s attention. Merzara’s impassioned hatred towards Molkonia ensured that Sincerity regained its throne and the decline of Clarendon was set devastatingly in motion.
For decades Clarendon clung on to its former magnificence with the law painstakingly maintained, the economy thriving through the tireless work of the merchants and the streets kept meticulously clean of degradation. However, the absence of the Odrican kings from the city and the unenviable task of the overworked magistrates in watching every corner of Clarendon left the streets vulnerable to corruption.
On the western side of Clarendon, at the base of the city wall, appeared the earliest testament to the city’s growing affiliation with segregation from the rest of the island – the White Oak. Odrica’s first official brothel had opened in 14037 to slow business and obscurity but word soon spread through the increasingly sleazy streets and in time the White Oak became the most sought after establishment in Clarendon.
The catalyst for Clarendon’s descent into profanity was Carlos Birchill. In his youth Carlos had epitomised the hard work and dedication of Odrica’s merchants, plying his trade both at home and in the foreign lands to the east. However, it was in Valadomiar that Carlos first observed the brothels used by soldiers to alleviate the physical and mental ardour of their relentless conquests.
Having grown rich from his dealings overseas, Carlos returned to Clarendon to enjoy his dwindling years. The White Oak followed soon afterwards. At first it was a simple inn with two whores operating under Carlos’ watchful eye. Within months profits were soaring and the lustful demands of the patrons forced Carlos not only to employ further prostitutes but to restructure the White Oak. The inn was extended and twenty new rooms were installed to facilitate Clarendon’s growing need for sexual gratification and escapism.
When Carlos died in 14062 the White Oak remained under the ownership of the Birchill family. Each generation enhanced the infamous reputation of the inn. At first there were several brushes with the law but when the Birchill family offered the local magistrates the luxuries of the White Oak free of charge the inn was accepted and became the mainstay of Clarendon.
The White Oak continued to endure for centuries, its plethora of wealth helping maintain the inn and adapt it in line with the many advancements in architecture. When Vincent Birchill became the new owner of the inn, more than ten thousand years after its founding, the White Oak was basking in the heights of success. The discovery of new lands in the west had allowed the Birchill family to open the White Oak to business overseas. Ships bound for the colonies would loan the finest ladies from the inn to help assuage the colonists’ lonely months at sea. The already extensive wealth of the Birchill family and of the White Oak was augmented through shrewd dealings and the boundless corruption that continued to plague the streets of Clarendon.
Vincent’s early tenure of the White Oak was spent maintaining the high standards of his predecessors but over time his insatiable greed and paranoid fear of losing power became detrimental to the inn. The long-standing alliances with Odrican vessels bound for the west were severed and the White Oak slowly returned to the isolation of its founding on the edge of Clarendon.
Free of outside influences, Vincent was able to keep a tight leash on all his assets. He spent hours meticulously counting the White Oak’s profits, surreptitiously monitored the time allocated to the patrons with each of his prostitutes and retained the bulk of their takings for future investment in the inn. Vincent’s tyrannous grip on the White Oak only receded the day he met Jessamine.
* * *
Jessamine’s arrival at the White Oak was the subject of conflicting rumours. Some said that Vincent had found her on the streets and offered to take her in, others professed that Jessamine was a prostitute from a rival brothel and that Vincent had persuaded her to join the White Oak. The worst of the sceptics claimed that Jessamine was payment from one of the local merchants who was heavily in debt from his frequent visits to Vincent’s inn and had been forced to sacrifice his own daughter. Whatever the truth, Vincent arrived at the White Oak one day with eighteen-year-old Jessamine by his side.
The atmosphere at the White Oak changed completely. Vincent quickly found himself overwhelmed by love for Jessamine and his hostile demeanour descended into a rare placidity that was welcomed by all that frequented the inn. It seemed that Vincent’s days of sexual promiscuity were at end and with Jessamine he had found the reassuring comfort of monogamy. However, Vincent’s new found and tender devotion did not last long.
Within months, Vincent’s love submitted to the lure of opportunity. During the long nights sitting with Jessamine by the bar, Vincent hadn’t failed to notice the lustful gazes of the patrons. Their eyes, wide with desire, followed Jessamine’s every move. Rather than feeling the insecurity of a jealous lover, Vincent was struck by a glorious epiphany, one that could increase his already vast wealth.
Vincent took his time in laying the foundations of his treacherous scheme. He enticed Jessamine with sweet words, flowers, rich trinkets and promises of impending marriage and children. Once Jessamine was at his mercy, Vincent introduced her to the wealthiest and most impatient of his patrons. His assurances to Jessamine spoke of monogamy and sacrifice that would bind them together for all time. If this had been the beginning of their relationship then Jessamine would have refused Vincent’s proposal and walked away; however, by this point her heart beat to the same rhythm as Vincent’s and to leave now was simply unthinkable. So Jessamine submitted body but not soul to the eager patrons, all the time thinking of Vincent’s reassurances that they would one day be married.
Jessamine’s new life as a prostitute of the White Oak brought fame and wealth. The mysterious and shy girl Vincent had first brought to the inn became spellbound by the power of her own intoxicating femininity. As her confidence grew Jessamine learned to dominate the room, giving equal attention to each patron before choosing to share her bed with the highest bidder. Vincent remained in the background and watched the patrons – old and young – offer money and fabulous gifts for just one night with Jessamine. The partnership was perfect. Jessamine would earn a fortune by day but at the end of the night would sleep in Vincent’s richly adorned arms.
When Jessamine passed her first year at the White Oak she saw a sudden change in Vincent. His greed, seldom constrained, was now unleashed in all its ferocity. Jessamine began entertaining patrons day and night to line Vincent’s already bulging pockets. Their nights of tender lovemaking and untarnished promises of marriage were forgotten. Jessamine, believing it to just be a phase Vincent was going through, worked even harder to please the patrons and win back the adoration of the one man she loved.
As the months passed Vincent did notice Jessamine’s efforts but only in the form of the increased income the White Oak now enjoyed. He still refused to come to her bed at night but by day would melt her heart with a brief smile or slight nod. For a time such acknowledgements were all Jessamine needed to get through the day, however, the moment she discovered she was pregnant everything changed completely.

Book Excerpt: You Never Know: Tales of Tobias, an Accidental Lottery Winner by Lilian Duval

Title: You Never Know: Tales of Tobias, an Accidental Lottery Winner
Author: Lilian Duval
Genre: Literary Fiction
Hardcover: 354 pages
Publisher: Wheatmark
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-1604945201

What happens when an ordinary person becomes extraordinary?

Tobias starts out in life much the same as any of us—not rich, not poor, with imperfect parents and unlimited ambition. When he’s twenty years old, his future is altered in irreparable ways after a tragic car accident pushes him down a new path. The once-promising anthropology major is forced to abandon his dreams in order to care for his orphaned, brain-damaged younger brother.

In his late thirties, Tobias works in a bookstore, trying desperately to make ends meet to support his family. His daily grind only reinforces the sadness that broken dreams and bad luck bring in their wake.

How many times have you heard someone say, “If only I won the lottery?”

When Tobias finds he has won the Mega Millions lottery, his unimaginable bad luck seems to have changed into unimaginable good luck … or has it?

Over peaks and valleys, this uplifting journey will challenge the limits of luck, life, and what we value most.

Find out more about the complications of Tobias’s friendship and rivalry with his best friend, Martin; the effects of all this bad luck and good luck on his marriage; and the struggles of his brother, Simeon, once a talented cartoonist, in … You Never Know.

BOOK EXCERPT:

Chapter 1

Saturday, December 23, 1989, was the kind of tepid winter day that made people ask, “What winter?” Dark by four in the afternoon, but no wind, no bite, a gray curtain over the sky for most of the day, just barely cold enough to freeze the slush into a treacherous skin of black ice that coated the streets like slime in a dirty shower stall. Tobias skidded on it when he stepped off the New Jersey Transit bus from Port Authority.
He was to call home from the bus station as soon as he arrived. He would wait in Amy’s Coffee House and pop out with his luggage when his father double-tapped the horn.

The bus had pulled into Woodrock, New Jersey, at four-thirty PM, half an hour late in Christmas traffic. Tobias slung his overstuffed book bag over his shoulder and dragged his valise into the crowded restaurant. He bought a giant latte and sat on a bar stool at the end of the counter. Other college students were chatting about ski trips and courses and their current romances. Christmas carols played on an endless loop. The place smelled of cinnamon.

The location of home was debatable. The longer he stayed away, the more separate he became from the family still living in Woodrock, to the point where he could almost forget them. Home was where his life was: Abington College in Maryland and the off-campus apartment he shared with Martin, his tennis partner, a math major planning on business school, who called Tobias a “liberal arts lefty.” They got along fine, were evenly matched on the courts, and took turns abandoning their apartment for a few hours when one or the other had a girlfriend over. They were both twenty, going on twenty-one, seesawing between adolescence and adulthood.

Tobias took a gulp of coffee and scalded his tongue. His father would be sitting in front of the TV now, doing nothing, waiting for the phone to ring. His mother would be delaying dinner preparations, sneaking another glass of wine. His brother, Simeon, would be upstairs in his room, sketching or drawing.

He sipped half the coffee and folded his arms over his book bag. Simeon, age fifteen, was a cartoonist. His pictures had appeared in the high school newspaper, the town newspaper, and the state magazine. Their mother was an art teacher, but no one had taught him cartooning; he just drew all day long–in class, where he was warm in art and cold in every other subject; at home, where he holed up in his room, away from the fighting; and anyplace he went where he had to wait in line. He didn’t talk much.

When Tobias was eleven, Simeon was six, and already attracting attention with his cartoons. He entered the school art contest with a drawing of his first-grade teacher, emphasizing her long earrings and long face, a caricature that was otherwise flattering. The school principal called and demanded to know who, in fact, had drawn a picture too advanced for a first-grader. Their mother huffed off to school, carrying a Grand Union bag crammed with Simeon’s cartoons of the last year or so, mostly of family members, to back him up. Simeon won the prize: a drawing set containing colored pencils, chalk pastels, an eraser, a sharpener, and a blending stump, all in a tin box with compartments like a Swanson frozen dinner.

Watching him sketch at the kitchen table, Tobias told their mother, “He’s talented because he practices so much. He never does anything else.” Simeon went on drawing without seeming to listen.

“No,” their mother said. “He practices so much because he’s talented.”

Tobias first saw his baby brother when he was two weeks old. He’d been sent alone at age five on a plane to his aunt Joyce in Encino, California, hovered over by flight attendants, at the time called stewardesses. Joyce, accustomed to covering for her alcoholic sister, took care of Tobias competently and joylessly for a month. On his return home, his father showed him the baby, asleep in a crib. “Here’s your new brother,” he said. “Just like you, only smaller.”

By the time Tobias was twelve, his mother was drinking in the mornings, her coffee mug filled with wine, and couldn’t get Simeon off to elementary school. Tobias packed his brother’s lunch every day before he left for middle school, taught him to tell time, and made sure he got out the door on time, while their mother went back to bed.

Tobias finished his coffee and asked the girl next to him to watch his stuff while he went to the men’s room. Someone was on the pay phone at the back of the restaurant. He ordered another coffee the same size. He wouldn’t be able to sleep. But rather than making him jittery, the caffeine was calming him, and he cast around for something to look forward to after this visit. He was always thinking, When this or that happens, then I’ll be happy. It was never now; it was always later. Maybe happiness is forever anticipating being happy, he thought. Getting what you want doesn’t equal happiness. His was a life always heading somewhere but never arriving.

At the moment, he was looking forward to three things: One, seeing his brother, his only family member who was not stuck in time or moving backward. Two, perversely, for this visit to be over. And three, his undergraduate anthropology fellowship in the rainforests of the Peruvian Amazon and the Yanomami territories of Brazil and Venezuela.

His father had forbidden Simeon to draw or paint until he raised his grades in school, where he was making As in art and Cs and Ds in all his other tenth-grade subjects. Twice, Tobias had mediated on the phone long-distance, to no avail. Simeon could draw with a fingernail in the dirt, but missed his art supplies, which their father had confiscated for the semester.

The phone at the back was free. Tobias felt in the front zippered flap of his suitcase for his family’s presents, all bought at the last minute from the campus store: an Abington College scarf for his mother, an Abington coffee mug for his father, and the book Best Cartoonists of the 20th Century for his brother. He lugged everything to the phone corner and started fishing for coins in his coat pocket, slowly. At the center table, students he had known in high school were staring at him. He turned his back and plunked a quarter into the phone.

“Toby!” a voice boomed from the open door. A man stepped into the coffee shop. “Tobias Hillyer.” The thirty or so customers all stopped talking at once. “Holly Jolly Christmas” warbled on the soundtrack.

Tobias grabbed his backpack and valise, scattering the coins from the phone shelf onto the floor. “Dad, I just got here. I was just calling you.”

They hugged.

“An hour late,” his father said, grinning under his winter hat, the kind with ear flaps. He cuffed Tobias on the head– only playfully. It hurt anyway.

“Thanks for coming, Dad. Come on; let’s go.” Murmurs of conversation sprang up as they shuffled to the door.

“Your mother wants us to stop and get Chinese food. No time to cook.” He put Tobias’s bags in the trunk. “So she said.”

“Dad, please don’t put anything on top of the suitcase.”

“How’s school?”

“Good, fine, Dad. I got a work-study job tutoring. Doing all right. So I’d like to invite you all out to dinner.” Getting the family out in public would at least mitigate their initial meeting.

They got in the car. “You still going down there with those pygmies?”

“Dad, they’re Yanomami. Brazilian Indians, some in Venezuela. It’ll be all right.”

“Yo Mama, that what you call them?” He laughed.

Tobias ignored him the rest of the way to the house. He started to unlock the front door, which gave way before he turned the key. Still broken.

“Hi, sweetie!” His mother embraced him. She reeked of wine, and her enthusiasm alarmed him. There would be a confrontation; he could sense it.

“Good to see you, Mom.” He stepped into the kitchen, ostensibly to get a glass of water, but only to check the barrel of corks behind the kitchen door. The top of the barrel reached his waist, and it was full of corks, some still wet from the bottle.

His mother was following him. “Sorry, honey, I didn’t have time to cook.”

His father said, “Tobias has invited us out. He’s into money now.”

“Mom. Dad. Let’s make this a good one, OK? How about in twenty minutes, we all go out and celebrate the Christmas season?” His head was hurting. If it weren’t for Simeon, he would have stayed on campus with the foreign students who lived too far away to go home on a holiday. He went upstairs to the room he had shared with his brother, who still had not emerged to greet him. Their bedroom door was closed. He knocked and walked in without waiting for an answer.

“Toby!” Simeon grabbed him, laughing and jumping like a little kid.

Tobias hugged him hard and thumped him on the back. “What are you doing, kiddo?”

“Just goofing around.” Simeon’s desk was covered with cartoons drawn on notebook paper with pencil, his other materials still under lock and key. There were caricatures of school friends; drawings of girls he favored, endowed with plus-size breasts and deep cleavage; and one picture of their mother, wine glass in hand, and their father, apparently scolding her.
Simeon was tall and thin like Tobias, but nearsighted. His rectangular glasses were always slipping down his narrow nose. “Toby. I got you something special. For your trip.” He opened his desk drawer. “Open it now.”

“Today’s only the twenty-third.”

“No, I have a regular present for you for Christmas. This is extra.”

“Aw, I feel bad, Simmy. All I have is one gift for you.”

“Doesn’t matter. This is for sticking up for me. Open it,”

Simeon said, handing him a wrapped box.

“Why now?”

“Hey, you never know.”

The present was heavy and solid, the size of a book, but denser. Tobias undid the wrapping paper. “Oh, man, Simmy, these are expensive.” It was a pair of Swarovski binoculars, 10 x 50 power, good enough for ornithologists in the jungle. “Oh, my God, Simmy, how could you do this?”
Simeon took the box from his brother and spilled the accessories out on the bed. “They’re waterproof and fog-proof.” He took out the lens covers, eyepiece covers, carrying case, and neck strap. “I won some art contests.”

“Simmy. Thank you. Thank you so much. I need these.” Tobias fingered the focusing knob. “These are great. Wow.”
Simeon laughed. Someone was starting to climb the stairs. They packed up the binoculars, hid the box under the pillows, and hurried downstairs.

Their father wanted to go to Vinny’s, their usual family restaurant. Tobias imagined the scene that would ensue. His mother would progress from tipsy to downright drunk. His parents would fight over how much she was drinking. Vinny’s had low ceilings, and you could hear every word from table to table.

“Dad, in honor of this special occasion, I’d like to take you all somewhere fancy.” The town’s other Italian restaurant, the upscale one, had no liquor license and poor acoustics, where you could hardly hear a word across the table. “Come on, everybody. I’ll drive.”

His mother was carrying a bottle of wine in a canvas tote bag.

“No, Toby, you never drive at school. Sit in the back.” She opened the door of their Ford Escort.

“He can drive,” his father barked and handed the keys to Tobias, and then sat in the front seat. Tobias wanted his brother to sit with him but didn’t complain. One hurdle cleared, and ten more days to go. He didn’t know how he was going to make it; his head was already throbbing. Simeon sat in the back behind Tobias and kicked the driver’s seat three times. Tobias grinned at him in the rearview mirror.

All during dinner, Simeon drew. On a typewriter pad from his brother’s book bag, he sketched a detailed cartoon of Tobias. In the drawing, Tobias was wearing a safari hat and hip boots and carrying a butterfly net. A pair of binoculars hung from a strap around his neck.

Their father scowled. “Simeon, quit scribbling, and join the family.”

“He’s not scribbling; he’s drawing,” his mother said.

“He’s OK, Dad.”

Simeon was exaggerating his brother’s thick, dark hair in the cartoon, letting it droop over his forehead. In the picture, Tobias’s nose was pointy and slightly bent, but his real-life nose, though aquiline, was fine and straight, its hook scarcely noticeable. His features were so symmetrical that you would have to compare his photo and its mirror image to spot any irregularities. Simeon’s own nose was ineffective in holding up his glasses, which he poked upward every now and then. He printed Toby at the bottom of the picture, signed it SIM, and turned to a new page.
“The food here is great,” Tobias said. He sprinkled some crushed red pepper on his spinach gnocchi in marinara sauce, which was delicious. He was ravenous, having skipped breakfast to catch the Greyhound bus from Baltimore to New York and having had nothing to eat all day but a bag of Fritos at a rest stop.

“Yeah, great,” his father said. “Try this.” He poked a meatball with his fork and dropped it onto Tobias’s plate.

“No thanks, Dad. This is fine.” Tobias returned the meatball and wiped his fork on the side of his plate.

“He’s a vegetarian, remember?” his mother said.

“Oh, sure, I forgot. He’s one of those tree huggers,” his father said. “At least put some cheese on that.”

Tobias was about to explain about being a vegan when he had another idea. He reached out his hands to his father opposite him and his mother on his left. “Mom. Dad. Simmy. I love you all.” His mother clasped his left hand. “It’s Christmastime. We’re together. We’re doing OK.” His father clasped his right hand. “Let’s enjoy this meal and stop bickering.” Simeon stopped drawing and joined the circle of hands. Their mother’s eyes teared.

Tobias paid the bill in cash over the objections of his father, who left a 20 percent tip. Simeon helped his mother with her coat. They got into the car in the same seats as before: Tobias in the driver’s seat, his father next to him, his brother behind him, and their mother next to Simeon.

“Oh, rats! I forgot the sketch pad.” He started to undo his seat belt to run back in for Simeon’s cartoon, dreading the fight that might erupt among the other three at close range.

“I’ll go, Toby. Stay there.” Simeon jumped out and ran into the restaurant before Tobias could open the door.
On the way home, his father asked him about his fellowship and the trip to South America. Tobias, happy to break the tension, explained he’d be living among the Yanomami Indians and sleeping under nets, learning their language, taking notes for his research.

“You’re distracting him,” his mother complained. “It’s icy.”

“Goddamn it, stop interrupting,” his father snarled. “This doesn’t concern you.”

Tobias approached the four-way intersection slowly and put on his left blinker. The light was red.

“Careful,” his father said.

“Let him be,” his mother said.

Tobias checked all the mirrors. The light turned green. In the back seat, his brother was smirking. As he went into the turn, out of nowhere, a larger vehicle ran the light, sped into the intersection, and skidded into the right side and back of the Hillyers’ car. Tobias heard the deafening crack, like a thunderclap in the mountains, before registering the impact.

The Ford spun around 180 degrees on the black ice. There were screams, splintering glass, scraping sounds, the sputtering motor. His hand turned the key and shut off the engine. His neck hurt.

He shouted, “Mom! Dad! Simmy!” No one answered. He jumped out of the car, tried to open the doors on the other side. The entire right side of the car was crushed. His parents weren’t moving. In the street lights, he could see blood oozing out of their mouths. He ran back to the driver’s side, opened the back door. “Simmy. Simeon. No, no!” he screamed.

“Somebody help, please!”

Sirens, police cars, ambulances appeared as if in a nightmare. Paramedics brought something called the jaws of life. By the time his parents had been extricated, they were both dead. They were wheeled to ambulances on covered stretchers.

Simeon was unconscious but alive. No injuries were apparent. They rushed him to the emergency room at Woodrock Hospital. A police officer drove Tobias to the hospital with sirens on and lights flashing.

The emergency room doctor came out of a white-curtained cubicle, holding a clipboard. “Mr. Hillyer?” he asked.

Tobias looked around. The doctor meant him. “Yes.”

“Who’s your next of kin?”

“My parents,” Tobias said. “My brother. Where’s my brother?”

“Your brother has a concussion and possibly some other head injuries. He’s unconscious. Any other family members nearby?”

“My aunt in California. Grandparents in Florida. Can I see my brother?” The pad with Simeon’s drawing was under his arm.

“We’re testing him now. Any other relatives? Other grandparents?”

“One in a nursing home. One dead. That’s all. Please take me to where my brother is. What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s in a coma. We suspect a diffuse axonal injury,” the doctor said. “It’s a type of traumatic brain damage.” He looked behind Tobias, but no one was there besides the police officer who had brought him in. “How old is your brother? How old are you?” he asked.

“He’s fifteen. I’m twenty. Twenty-one in March.”

The doctor put his arm around Tobias. “I’m sorry, son,” he said.

Book Excerpt: The Illusion of Certainty

THE ILLUSION OF CERTAINTY, by Greg Messel, Yorkshire Publishing, 452 pp.

The Illusion of Certainty follows two parallel storylines. Marc is a successful businessman who seems to have everything—a great job, a beautiful wife, a house in an upscale neighborhood of Portland, Oregon and two great kids who are preparing for college. But something is not right. Marc is unsettled by the sudden change in his wife, Aimee, who seems distant and unhappy. What’s going on with her?

The second storyline involves a successful young attorney, Alexandra Mattson. Alex, as she is called by her friends, meets a handsome young cop, Sean, during an unexpected crisis in her neighborhood. Sean and Alex seem made for each other and begin to merge their futures in a world of uncertainty.

The only certainty in life is that we will face uncertainty. Despite all fo the technology and controls available in the modern world, sometimes the only comfort comes from the human touch.

Excerpt:

The naked woman stood motionless, leaning against the wall of the shower and letting the hot water strike the top of her head and cascade down her back. She placed her hands flat against the tiled shower wall and leaned forward and closed her eyes. The warm water soothed her exhausted body and she felt enveloped in its comforting caress.

She felt safe and was now pampering herself after a grueling night shift at the hospital where she was a nurse. A nurse with considerable responsibilities.

Aimee Hunt-Wilson had enough experience and clout to avoid these awful shifts but as a supervisor she was on a mission this summer. She had been working nights most of the summer to try to rehabilitate the night shift, which was in disarray. Someone needed to repair the damage brought on by an incompetent supervisor who was now gone. Aimee was trying to shape things up. It’s what Aimee did best; however, it was taking a toll on her.

Marc Wilson was having his first moments of consciousness on this Tuesday morning. He slept alone. That was happening more and more these days. From the bed he could see Aimee, his wife, through the clear glass box that was the shower in their master suite. The only light filtering into the bedroom and casting a soft light on Marc’s bed was the light from Aimee’s shower.

He leaned up on his elbow and gazed through the steam at the nude Aimee. He was getting aroused. Marc still loved his wife’s body. Lately, when he saw her, she was always hidden in the baggy scrubs she wore at the hospital. Her long black hair was plastered to her wet bare back by the shower water. Aimee always tanned so well. At this point in the summer she had a perfect swimsuit tan. Her body had matured but it had actually gotten better since the college days when they first met.

Her breasts and hips were fuller now but the rest of Aimee’s body was taunt and lean. She was about 5-5, probably in the best shape of her life. Aimee obsessively exercised and carefully monitored her diet. After her shower she would come to bed to rest and then be pounding the pavement this afternoon running, getting in her miles. Aimee had always been so meticulous about what she ate and she imposed the same standards on Marc.

Marc’s favorite meal, a burger and fries, was considered in the same category as rat poison by Aimee. If Marc went through a fast food window to sneak a burger, he felt compelled to hide the evidence from Aimee. But all of this vigilance certainly paid off in the way Aimee looked. This mother of two, with a manic schedule, looked terrific as she approached Illusion of Certainty middle age. Her long dark hair, which was naturally curly, was a stunning combination with her bright blue eyes.

Marc now lay in the early morning light watching Aimee step from the shower, all pink and soft, as she began to towel off. She then plugged in her hair dryer, bent over and began to dry her long hair. As he observed her maneuvers to dry her hair, he was taking in the sight of her bouncing breasts and lovely body. Marc knew that when she finished, she would quickly throw on one of his oversized t-shirts and jump under the covers—just as it was time for Marc to get out of bed and begin his day. Marc rolled out of bed and attempted to head her off before she dressed and made it to the bed. He was hoping that somehow he could have her, that he could enjoy the physical pleasures of his sexy wife. This had not been planned but the moment was presenting itself and he wanted her. Marc hoped Aimee would want the intimacy, too. Aimee slipped on some bright blue bikini panties just as Marc stood in front of her and said, “Hey you’re really looking sexy this morning.”

Oh Marc, I’m so exhausted, you seem to have the world’s worst timing.”

“Oh come on Aimee, wouldn’t it be fun?”

“Trust me Marc, it wouldn’t be fun right now. I just need some sleep.”

“So when, in this whole summer, would you suggest I make love to you?”

“Marc,” Aimee said with resignation, “I’m begging you to not start right now.”

— Excerpted from The Illusion of Certainty

Book Excerpt: Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting! by Robert Boich

Title: Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting!
Author: Robert Boich
Paperback: 152 pages
Publisher: iUniverse
Language: English
ISBN-1440121079
ISBN-13: 978-1440121074

Making a resolution to address an alcohol or substance abuse issue is only the beginning. The real work begins when the alcoholic or addict acknowledges that something has to be done. As one counselor put it, “An addict only has to change one thing: everything.” More than mere abstinence or simply eliminating certain people and places from one’s daily routine, a successful recovery requires a brand-new approach in dealing with life. In this compelling, intimate narrative, Boich shares his struggles, and insights encountered during his first six months in recovery.

Excerpt

One of the first things I learned was that I was looking at things backwards; fix my substance abuse problems, and my life would fix itself. It seemed to make sense at the time. It goes back to the abstinence versus sobriety issue I mentioned earlier. It’s true, abstinence, definitely improved my life. I could see a difference in myself after a couple of weeks. The problem with this approach is that I was still the same person. I had to look at the bigger picture. One of my new friends explained it to me like this. “The man I was drank. The man I was will drink again. I have to change the man.” That statement echoed the sentiments of one of my counselors, the same one who encouraged me to write this book. He told me that in order to stay sober, I only had to change one thing. Everything!

Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting! is available to order at Amazon. To find out more about Robert, visit his website at www.rwboich.com.  Robert is available for interviews.  Email Dorothy Thompson at thewriterslife(at)yahoo.com to inquire.

Book Excerpt: My Sister’s Voice by Mary Carter

Title: My Sister’s Voice
Author: Mary Carter
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Kensington (May 25, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0758229208
ISBN-13: 978-0758229205

What do you do when you discover your whole life was a lie? In Mary Carter’s unforgettable new novel, one woman is about to find out. . .

At twenty-eight, Lacey Gears is exactly where she wants to be. An up-and-coming, proudly Deaf artist in Philadelphia, she’s in a relationship with a wonderful man and rarely thinks about her difficult childhood in a home for disabled orphans. That is, until Lacey receives a letter that begins, “You have a sister. A twin to be exact…”

Learning her identical, hearing twin, Monica, experienced the normal childhood she was denied resurrects all of Lacey’s grief, and she angrily sets out to find Monica and her biological parents. But the truth about Monica’s life, their brief shared past, and the reason for the twins’ separation is far from simple. And for every one of Lacey’s questions that’s answered, others are raised, more baffling and profound.

Complex, moving, and beautifully told, My Sister’s Voice is a novel about sisterhood, love of every shape, and the stories we cling to until real life comes crashing in…

Excerpt

Chapter 1
It was here, in the City of Brotherly Love, at twenty-eight years of age, that Lacey Gears first discovered she had a sister. An identical twin. Of course it wasn’t true. A joke, a hoax, a prank. As if. It was completely ridiculous, and although she of all people appreciated a good—Gotcha!— she didn’t have time for games today. She had to buy an anniversary gift for her boyfriend Alan, then race off to paint a chubby Chihuahua and its anorexic owner. An identical twin. Funny, ha-ha.

The hoax came by way of her red mailbox. She wasn’t going to open the mail, she usually waited until the end of the day to sift through it, preferably with a glass of wine, for a single bill could depress her all day long. But as she jogged down her front steps, she caught sight of the mailman wheeling his pregnant bag down the sidewalk. He had just passed her house, when he caught her eye. He made a dramatic stop, and waved his arms at her as if she were an Airbus coming in for a landing instead of a 5’6 slip of a girl. He jabbed his finger at her mailbox, then patted his large stomach, and then once again jabbed his finger at her mailbox with an exaggerated wag of his head and a silly smile. Lacey had to laugh. She gave him a slight shrug held her hands out like, Can-I-help-it-if-I’m-so-popular?

He winked, blew her a kiss, and then pointed at her mailbox again. She caught his kiss, pretended to swoon, and blew him a kiss of his own. By now they had an unappreciative audience. The woman who lived next door was standing in the middle of her walkway, hands on hips, glaring at the mailman. She was a large white woman in a small red bathrobe. He gave Lacey one last wave, one last jab at the mailbox. Oh, why not. If it would make him happy, she could spare a few seconds to open it. Lacey waved goodbye to him and hello to the woman in the red bathrobe. Only one wave was returned. She turned her attention to the mailbox.

He wasn’t kidding. It was stuffed. She had to use both hands to get a grip on it, and exert considerable effort. She managed to yank out the entire pile, but she moved too fast, causing the precarious mound to shift and slide through her hands. As the mail swan dived the steps, she bent at the knees and lowered herself, as if she’d rather let it take her down than give up. She finally, got a rein on the loose bits, and nervous she was wasting time, she began to flip through the day’s offerings.

Bills: AT&T, Time Warner; Catalogues: Macy’s, Deaf Digest, Galluadet University; Advertisements: Chow Chow’s Chinese restaurant, 20 percent off carpet cleaning, Jiffy Lube. Waste of time. Lacey stuffed the mail back in the box, and was about to close the lid when she spotted it a white envelope, sticking out of one of the catalogues. She’d almost missed it. She pulled it out and stared at it.

No address, no stamp, no postmark. Just her name typed across the front, looking as if it had been pecked out on a typewriter from the Jurassic Period. An anonymous letter with its mouth taped shut; a ransom note. For a split-second she was worried someone had kidnapped her dog. She glanced up at the window to her bedroom, and to her relief spotted her puggle, Rookie. His nose was smashed up against the windowpane she’d spent hours cleaning, drool running down and forming Spittle Lake, brown eyes pleading: How can you leave me? She air-kissed her dog an obscene amount of times, then once again turned her attention back to the envelope.

Lacey Gears

Mysterious letter in hand, she jogged down the steps to the curb where her Harley Sportser 883 was parked, slung her leg over her motorcycle, and perched comfortably in the custom-made leather seat. She soothed herself in her fun-house reflection elongated in the bike’s polished chrome, detailed in Red Hot Sunglo and Smokey Gold. A feeling of peace settled over her. When she was on her bike she felt sexy and confident, something every woman deserved to feel. Some days she wished she could figure out how to stay on it 24/7.

She’d bought the bike after selling her first piece of abstract art, a kaleidoscope of hands coming together in slow motion, bought by PSD, the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, where as a little girl Lacey had longed to go. At least a piece of her was there now, hanging on the walls as a reminder to Deaf children that they could be anything, achieve anything, do everything but hear. It sold for a decent amount of money, leaving her feeling giddy and slightly guilty as if she had gotten away with something. She bought the Harley as quick as she could, in case they turned around and asked for the money back. Alan said it was proof she could stop painting pet-and-owner portraits and focus solely on what she wanted to paint. But despite her luck with the one sale, the only paintings she was doing besides the portraits were ones she didn’t want to share with the world. Not just yet. And for the most part she liked her job. She had to admit, she usually liked the pets a little more than the people, but even most of them weren’t so bad. She turned her attention back to the envelope, peeled the edge up, and slid her finger across the inside-top. The envelope sliced into her finger, cutting a thin line across her delicate skin. A drop of blood sprouted and seeped onto the envelope. She jerked her hand back, as a slip of white paper slid out of the envelope like an escaped prisoner, and fluttered to the ground.

Lacey hopped off the bike, and chased the paper down the sidewalk. It stayed just enough ahead of her to make her look like an idiot chasing it. A slight breeze picked it up and lifted it into the air. It hovered mid-stream, like a mini-magic-carpet. Make a wish, Lacey thought. She reached out and caught it before it sunk to the ground. After all this fuss, it had better be good.

You have a twin sister. Her name is Monica. Go to Benjamin Books. Look at the poster in the window.

Lacey looked up the street, convinced the mailman was standing by with another wink and a laugh. He wasn’t. He was way up the street, his cart parked in the middle of the sidewalk, his bag now slung over his shoulder, thwapping into the side of his leg with each long stride up the steps in front of him. Bathrobe-woman was nowhere in sight either. For all Lacey knew she only came out once a day to wither away civil servicemen with a single look.

You have a twin sister. . . .

My Sister’s Voice by Mary Carter is available for pre-order at Amazon. Add My Sister’s Voice to your Amazon Wish List by clicking here. To find out more about Mary Carter, visit her website at www.marycarterbooks.com.

AMERICAN LION: ANDREW JACKSON IN THE WHITE HOUSE by Newsweek’s Editor Jon Meacham

Author: Jon Meacham
Title: American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
Paperback: 512 pgs
Publisher: Random House
Genre: Biography
Language: English
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7346-4

PURCHASE HERE

New York Times Bestseller and 2009 Pulitzer Prizewinner for Biography, AMERICAN LION by Jon Meacham is a deeply insightful and eminently readable narrative biography of Andrew Jackson (often called “America’s second founding father”) and his pivotal years in the White House that shaped the modern presidency.

Andrew Jackson, his intimate circle of friends, and his tumultuous times are at the heart of this remarkable book about the man who rose from nothing to create the modern presidency. Beloved and hated, venerated and reviled, Andrew Jackson was an orphan who fought his way to the pinnacle of power, bending the nation to his will in the cause of democracy. Jackson’s election in 1828 ushered in a new and lasting era in which the people, not distant elites, were the guiding force in American politics. Democracy made its stand in the Jackson years, and he gave voice to the hopes and the fears of a restless, changing nation facing challenging times at home and threats abroad. To tell the saga of Jackson’s presidency, acclaimed author Jon Meacham goes inside the Jackson White House. Drawing on newly discovered family letters and papers, he details the human drama–the family, the women, and the inner circle of advisers–that shaped Jackson’s private world through years of storm and victory.

One of our most significant yet dimly recalled presidents, Jackson was a battle-hardened warrior, the founder of the Democratic Party, and the architect of the presidency as we know it. His story is one of violence, sex, courage, and tragedy. With his powerful persona, his evident bravery, and his mystical connection to the people, Jackson moved the White House from the periphery of government to the center of national action, articulating a vision of change that challenged entrenched interests to heed the popular will–or face his formidable wrath. The greatest of the presidents who have followed Jackson in the White House–from Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt to FDR to Truman–have found inspiration in his example, and virtue in his vision.

Jackson was the most contradictory of men. The architect of the removal of Indians from their native lands, he was warmly sentimental and risked everything to give more power to ordinary citizens. He was, in short, a lot like his country: alternately kind and vicious, brilliant and blind; and a man who fought a lifelong war to keep the republic safe–no matter what it took.

Jon Meacham in American Lion has delivered the definitive human portrait of a pivotal president who forever changed the American presidency–and America itself.

Christmas 1828 should have been the happiest of seasons at the Hermitage, Jackson’s plantation twelve miles outside Nashville. It was a week before the holiday, and Jackson had won the presidency of the United States the month before. “How triumphant!” Andrew Donelson said of the victory. “How flattering to the cause of the people!” Now the president- elect’s family and friends were to be on hand for a holiday of good food, liquor, and wine–Jackson was known to serve guests whiskey, champagne, claret, Madeira, port, and gin–and, in this special year, a pageant of horses, guns, and martial glory.

On Wednesday, December 17, 1828, Jackson was sitting inside the house, answering congratulatory messages. As he worked, friends in town were planning a ball to honor their favorite son before he left for Washington. Led by a marshal, there would be a guard of soldiers on horseback to take Jackson into Nashville, fire a twenty- four- gun artillery salute, and escort him to a dinner followed by dancing. Rachel would be by his side.
In the last moments before the celebrations, and his duties, began, Jackson drafted a letter. Writing in his hurried hand across the foolscap, he accepted an old friend’s good wishes: “To the people, for the confidence reposed in me, my gratitude and best services are due; and are pledged to their service.” Before he finished the note, Jackson went outside to his Tennessee fields.

He knew his election was inspiring both reverence and loathing. The 1828 presidential campaign between Jackson and Adams had been vicious. Jackson’s forces had charged that Adams, as minister to Russia, had procured a woman for Czar Alexander I. As president, Adams was alleged to have spent too much public money decorating the White House, buying fancy china and a billiard table. The anti- Jackson assaults were more colorful. Jackson’s foes called his wife a bigamist and his mother a whore, attacking him for a history of dueling, for alleged atrocities in battles against the British, the Spanish, and the Indians–and for being a wife stealer who had married Rachel before she was divorced from her first husband. “Even Mrs. J. is not spared, and my pious Mother, nearly fifty years in the tomb, and who, from her cradle to her death had not a speck upon her character, has been dragged forth . . . and held to public scorn as a prostitute who intermarried with a Negro, and my eldest brother sold as a slave in Carolina,” Jackson said to a friend.

Jackson’s advisers marveled at the ferocity of the Adams attacks. “The floodgates of falsehood, slander, and abuse have been hoisted and the most nauseating filth is poured, in torrents, on the head, of not only Genl Jackson but all his prominent supporters,” William B. Lewis told John Coffee, an old friend of Jackson’s from Tennessee.
Some Americans thought of the president-elect as a second Father of His Country. Others wanted him dead. One Revolutionary War veteran, David Coons of Harpers Ferry, Virginia, was hearing rumors of ambush and assassination plots against Jackson. To Coons, Jackson was coming to rule as a tribune of the people, but to others Jackson seemed dangerous–so dangerous, in fact, that he was worth killing. “There are a portion of malicious and unprincipled men who have made hard threats with regard to you, men whose baseness would (in my opinion) prompt them to do anything,” Coons wrote Jackson.

That was the turbulent world awaiting beyond the Hermitage. In the draft of a speech he was to deliver to the celebration in town, Jackson was torn between anxiety and nostalgia. “The consciousness of a steady adherence to my duty has not been disturbed by the unsparing attacks of which I have been the subject during the election,” the speech read. Still, Jackson admitted he felt “apprehension” about the years ahead. His chief fear? That, in Jackson’s words, “I shall fail” to secure “the future prosperity of our beloved country.” Perhaps the procession to Nashville and the ball at the hotel would lift his spirits; perhaps Christmas with his family would.

While Jackson was outside, word came that his wife had collapsed in her sitting room, screaming in pain. It had been a wretched time for Rachel. She was, Jackson’s political foes cried, “a black wench,” a “profligate woman,” unfit to be the wife of the president of the United States. Shaken by the at- tacks, Rachel–also sixty-one and, in contrast to her husband, short and somewhat heavy–had been melancholy and anxious. “The enemies of the General have dipped their arrows in wormwood and gall and sped them at me,” Rachel lamented during the campaign. “Almighty God, was there ever any thing equal to it?” On the way home from a trip to Nashville after the balloting, Rachel was devastated to overhear a conversation about the lurid charges against her. Her niece, the twenty-one- year- old Emily Donelson, tried to reassure her aunt but failed. “No, Emily,” Mrs. Jackson replied, “I’ll never forget it!”

When news of her husband’s election arrived, she said: “Well, for Mr. Jackson’s sake I am glad; for my own part I never wished it.” Now the cumulative toll of the campaign and the coming administration exacted its price as Rachel was put to bed, the sound of her cries still echoing in her slave Hannah’s ears.

Jon Meacham is the editor of Newsweek and author of American Lion and the New York Times bestsellers Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship and American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation. He lives in New York City with his wife and children. You can visit his website at www.jonmeacham.com.

TOO MANY VISITORS FOR ONE LITTLE HOUSE by Susan Chodakiewitz

Author: Susan Chodakiewitz
Title: Too Many Visitors for One Little House
Paperback: 40 pages
Publisher: Booksicals
Genre: Children’s Picture Book
Language: English
ISBN: 9780345499707

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The crabby neighbors of El Camino can’t bear all the music, fun and laughter at the house of the new family on the block as aunts, uncles, cousins and grannies arrive for a big noisy reunion. Too Many Visitors for One Little House is a joyful story about the importance of being included..

Susan Chodakiewitz is a writer, composer and producer. She is the founder of Booksicals Children’s Books- Encouraging the love of reading through the arts. Through her company Booksicals she has created the Booksicals on Stage literacy program which is currently presenting musical performances of the picture book Too Many Visitors for One Little House at schools, libraries, and special events.

Susan lives in Los Angeles in a lively household filled with music, three sons, a husband, a Dalmatian and lots of visitors. Susan loves picture books and when she wrote a musical based on one of her favorites, she realized it was time to start writing her own picture books. Too Many Visitors for One Little House is Susan’s debut book. You can visit her website at www.booksicals.com.

The neighbors of El Camino Street did not like pets. They did not like kids. They did not like people with big families. They never had any guests and spent their day cleaning their houses, tending their gardens, and snoozing on their porches.

When the new family on the block moved in — a mom, a dad, three kids, and a fish—the neighbors kept an eye out for trouble. Yet life remained as
usual…until the day the visitors arrived.

THE NEW IQ by Dr. David Gruder

Author: Dr. David Gruder
Title: The New IQ
Paperback: 308 pages
Publisher: Elite Books l Energy Psychology Press
Genre: Nonfiction; Personal Growth
Language: English
ISBN: 1604150130

PURCHASE HERE!

From the White House, to the board room, to the privacy of our own bedrooms, and virtually everywhere in between, integrity deficits are destroying our personal lives, our businesses, our economy, our healthcare, our society, and our planet.

Creating sustainable integrity-centered solutions to today’s vast array of major challenges requires us, as individuals and as a society, to take a fresh look at what creates life fulfillment. It requires us as citizens to develop a new integrity-centered vision of what we need to require from our leaders in government, business, advocacy groups, community organizations and the media.

The New IQ is the world’s first road-tested guide to integrity-centered living, working, loving, and serving. Hailed as a “once-in-a-generation book,” it provides the first step-by-step road map for restoring the vanishing virtue of integrity… for the sake of our loved ones, our communities, our businesses, our society, and our own personal well being.

Going far beyond being a self-help book, this critically acclaimed five-award-winning action plan offers a socially responsible way to attain personal, relationship, and career fulfillment during difficult times, without sacrificing ethics and integrity. Here at last is your complete guide to “personal development that serves us all.”

David Gruder, PhD, DCEP, is perhaps the world’s only clinical-organizational psychologist specializing in integrity development. Known as “The Integritizer,” he is the leader in transpartisan nondenominational strategies for solving the massive integrity deficits that have caused today’s vast social, economic, and political challenges. Dr. Gruder founded the “Integritize America Campaign,” an integrity stimulus plan for renewing personal, relationship and societal integrity so we can finally co-create sustainable solutions to today’s most challenging issues. His latest book, “THE NEW IQ: How Integrity Intelligence Serves You, Your Relationships and our World,” is the world’s first step-by-step guide to attaining personal, relationship, and career fulfillment during difficult times without sacrificing ethics and integrity. It has won five book awards in the areas of “social change,” (book of the year), “current events in politics and society” (honorable mention), “health & wellness” (book of the year), “self-help” (bronze medal) and “metapsychology” (book of the year). A professional speaker and trainer for almost three decades, Dr. Gruder speaks, trains, consults worldwide on how to “Integritize” citizens, government, communities, businesses, health care, education, religion, journalism, advocacy groups, and leadership. His clients have ranged from family-owned businesses to American Express work teams, from the Sanoviv Medical Institute to the San Diego Office of Education Management Academy, and from local politicians and executives to World Trade Organization ambassadors. His main website is www.TheNewIQ.com.

We All Know Lack of Integrity Is Rampant Today in All Parts of the World: Our massive integrity problems have been caused by massively distorted ideas about what creates fulfillment. The most powerful path for restoring integrity thus starts with understanding what creates true and lasting fulfillment.

* You Were Born with Three Core Drives: 1) Authenticity is your innate drive to be who you truly are. 2) Connection is your innate drive to bond with others. 3) Impact is your innate drive to influence the world around you.

* Do You Really Want to Experience Fulfillment? If so, it’s time to learn how to live in integrity with all three of your core drives, not just one or two of them.

* Do You Really Value Integrity? True authenticity requires self-integrity. Nourishing, productive and durable connection requires relationship integrity. Positive impact requires societal integrity: integrity with the collectives of which you are a part, from your own family to the earth itself. Those who truly value integrity become good at making personal choices, and co-creating solutions with others, that simultaneously serve “we,” “me” and “us all.” This is 3D Integrity: the only sustainable path to a fulfilling future for us as individuals, for our relationships, for our society, for humanity as a whole, and for our planet.

* Is There a Reliable Path to Integrity-Centered Fulfillment? Over his twenty-five years as a clinical and organizational psychologist, Dr. David Gruder’s psychotherapy and leadership mentoring clients taught him an incredibly important secret: Those who naturally attain high levels of integrity-centered fulfillment intuitively develop seven very specific life skills called WisePassions, in place of the automated survival habits they developed as children and carried into adulthood. Based on having learned how to successfully teach these WisePassions to thousands of others in keynotes, classes, workshops, and staff training programs, The New IQ book and workbook show YOU how to create integrity-centered life fulfillment while also inspiring integrity in the world around you.

AVENGING ANGEL by Kim Smith

Avenging Angel: A Shannon Wallace Mystery
Kim Smith
Mystery, Mainstream Fiction
Red Rose Publishing

Kim Smith was born in Memphis Tennessee, the youngest of four children. After a short stint in a Northwest Mississippi junior college, during the era of John Grisham’s rise as a lawyer, she gave up educational pursuits to marry and begin family life.

She has worked in many fields in her life, from fast food waitress to telephone sales. “I always got the seniors on the phone who were lonely and wanted someone to talk to. My boss couldn’t understand why in the world I spent so much time talking to them and not enough time selling. That was when I realized I love people and care deeply about their lives.”

After the birth of her two children, she gave up working outside the home for the more important domestic duties of wife and mother. When her kids decided they wanted to pursue theater as an extracurricular activity, she gave up her free time to drive them to rehearsals, training classes, and plays. During those years, she found herself bored with nothing to do to while away the hours stuck in a car. She began thinking of stories to entertain herself and pass the time. Before long she started telling her husband about her stories and he assured her she could write a book if she really wanted to. She put the idea away once she landed a job as a network administrator for a small corporation, and together the Smith’s started their own video production company.

Writing was a dream, hidden but not forgotten, and soon Kim began to talk again of trying her hand at it. She played with words, and wrote several poems, one of which was picked up for an anthology

One day in the early nineties her husband came home with a desktop computer and sat her in front of it. “Now you have no more excuses,” he said, and she realized the truth in his words. Procrastination, now no longer an option, she took off on the pursuit of penning her first book. Though that book, a young adult fantasy, was lost due to unforeseen circumstances, she kept going, writing a historical romance, and another YA.

When she decided to try out her hand at mystery writing, she discovered her true love and niche in the writing journey. She has since had four short stories, and her first mystery novel accepted for publication.

Kim is a member of Sisters in Crime, and EPIC. She still lives in the Mid South region of the United States and is currently working on her second book in the mystery series.

You can visit her website at www.mkimsmith.com.

Shannon Wallace is having a bad hair week.

She’s been ditched by her job, dumped by her boyfriend, and implicated in his murder.

When she finds out her very private video collection is missing from the crime scene, it is all out war to find the disks before the cops do. The problem is, the killer has them. And he’s watched them.

Now Shannon’s at the top of his most wanted list.

My Aunt Nancy always told me to dress in my best clothes when I went out, because I never knew whom I might meet. This time, I hadn’t done the best I could to make myself presentable. Jeans, tee shirt, and a ponytail didn’t qualify for modern chic. When the detective opened the door to the Homicide Office, I wished I’d worn a skirt and heels. In a moment of clarity, I understood my aunt’s concerns about going out half-ready.

The sexy, Hispanic man who raised an eyebrow and patiently waited for me to state my business was none other than Salvador Ramirez, formerly of Mississippi Junior College, the same school I attended back in the day. Of all the eligible men at college, he was the most highly sought after. Partly because he’d won the “sexiest legs” contest two years in a row, and partly because he had a bad boy quality, which made all of the girls want him.

Especially me. And damn the luck, I got a shot at him. When I discovered our date was based on a dare someone posed, I retaliated by publishing excerpts of his personal journal in the college’s monthly newsletter, The Bugle.

“Mr. Ramirez,” I said, trying to look harmless. “Of the award-winning legs.”

His expression changed as he looked at me and I knew he remembered our rocky past. My heart leapt into my throat. This was not the face of a man happy to see an old chum.

“Shannon Wallace, of the vigilantes for journalism,” he said, deadpan. “Mama said there would be days like this.”

Nope. He was not a happy cop.

He waved me into the room. “Come in.”

The entire office was a mess, most of it concentrated on two desks littered with papers.

“What are you doing here? Looking for a few good men to belittle in a new publication? Should I hide the personal notes on my cases?” he asked.

Sarcasm. I smiled. It was a beginning. He hadn’t forgotten, so that meant he intended on seeing I didn’t get a chance to repeat my past mistakes. Dandy by me. I just wanted to plead my case, and escape a free woman. If I never crossed the threshold here again, my feelings wouldn’t be hurt.

“I think you’ve held a grudge, but it was all in fun.”

“Fun?” He scanned the hallway before shutting the door. “You ruined every chance I ever had of getting a decent date. I never dreamed you would print my private journal for Christ’s sake.”

“It was no journal. It was a freaking scorecard.”

He frowned at me and turned away, muttering something in Spanish that sounded like curses.

Suddenly turning the details of my situation over to him didn’t seem like such a great idea. Had he harbored a desire for revenge all these years?

Dwayne’s words came to mind. I couldn’t have done it; criminals were innocent until proven guilty and all that jazz.

Would Sal see that?

“I’m not here to do an exposé on your life, Sal. I’m here about my own troubles. I need to tell a cop about a man who was murdered. But if you aren’t interested…”

He stopped clearing file folders from a metal folding chair and pinioned me with his Nestlé’s cocoa-colored eyes. “Murdered?”

“Yes. Richard Fine. Is he your case?”

“You know he is. Or have you given up your journalistic aspirations?” He shoved papers into the files. “Have you graduated from theft to murder, now?”

I sat there for a moment trying to squelch the anger that surfaced. “Would you stop being so disagreeable about what’s past between us and listen? You might get some information that could help you. I never intended to hurt you. It was a joke.”

“I don’t like your jokes.”

That was the final straw. “And I don’t like being made fun of. How much did they pay you to take me out on your little ‘dare date’ that night?”

He straightened, gripping the back of a nearby folding chair.

Checkmate.

He carried the chair to where I stood, and I got a better look at him. He was a good deal taller than me, and even under the yellow Oxford shirt I saw he was well rippled with muscles, maleness, and menace. Sal seemed quite a different person from the jeans, golf shirts, and practical jokes days. The cologne was the same though. Aramis. I took a deep breath in appreciation.

The angry fire I’d stirred showed in his eyes. He skidded the metal chair a few feet forward. It made a scraping sound as it landed perfectly, facing his desk.

“Sit, Miss Wallace. Tell me why I should hear your story. And keep in mind I’m due for a meeting in about ten minutes.”

I sat and waited while he joined me behind his desk. It felt rather official all of a sudden. He crossed his hands and leaned forward, ready to hear my story.

“I was at Rick’s apartment at midnight. And when forensics finishes checking out his place, they’re going to find my hair and other assorted things.”

“Will they find your fingerprints on a knife?”

I thought about his question. We hadn’t done much cooking at Rick’s apartment, but there was the off chance that I had handled a steak knife. Or cleaver. I closed my eyes, and prayed Dwayne was right. I just knew I wouldn’t look good in a state uniform.

“They’ll find them on a lot of stuff. Do I need a lawyer present?”

Purchase Avenging Angel at Red Rose Publishing!