A DEATH FOR BEAUTY, by Alberto Rios Arias, Freedom River Books, Kindle Edition, $7.95.

Set during the Civil War, a troubled young woman struggles with her conscience after the suspicious death of her unfaithful husband. When her dreams of a new life seem hopeful, she ventures across the western plains with her sickly daughter in tow and an unscrupulous businessman who promises her a pot of gold. But the seeds of this dangerous venture—sown in blood—yield the unexpected and what she encounters along the fringes of the Oregon Trail in the dark corners of the prairies, will change her life forever.

BOOK EXCERPT:

THE SOUND RUMBLED THROUGH the air like a stampede of wild horses, warning what was yet to come. The winds echoed like an open wound—a wound so deep that only death could heal it.

She could feel the storm approaching from the east, the rising heat, the smell of rain. She saw the natural order of things gathering. Death comes like salvation, unexpectedly. But her life was slow and deliberate. A life bound by swirling untruths—dark, unanswered prayers.

Virginia Mae Mercy always dreamed of starting over somewhere else. Now that her husband died, everything else stood still too, and if she needed a little push to get on with her life, that’s when the whirlwinds seemed imbued with divine purpose.

She tried to lock down the storm shelter, but within seconds, she lay in a cornfield searching for her little girl. The storm tore off the shelter doors, snatching her and the girl in a flash. They landed acres away but somehow survived, almost falling together, bruised and hallucinating.

Two signs from above were enough.

Last month, the first sign had come in the unlikely form of a telegram. She felt it coming. Confederate soldiers killed her husband in battle, or so they thought. That shocker was still under investigation, and the disorienting malaise from this recent storm, was finally beginning to fade.

Virginia never understood life’s storms. Not hers. But if there was one defining moment in her mind that crystallized and spoke to her sensibilities, this was it. She wished she could understand eternal matters too, a lifetime of prayers that until recently had gone unanswered.

Yet it was the earthly things that often made her breathe a little heavier, made her heart beat a little faster. In reflection, she feared the sudden horror of dying alone, her childhood premonitions about a fragile life in Geneva, Kansas. How dangerous life really was.

– Excerpt from A Death for Beauty by Alberto Rios Arias. Visit the author’s website at www.adeathforbeauty.com.

Tags: A Death For Beauty, Alberto Rios Arias

GLORIFY EACH DAY, by John Banks, 819 Publishing, 286 pp, $12.64 (Kindle $9.99)

Glorify Each Day is a darkly comical novel depicting the consequences of violence in modern American life. It tells many stories. Tommy “Teach” Morrison, the novel’s main character, tells the story of his relationship with his childhood friend Charles – a story of a horrible misunderstanding and a story that Tommy can never retell. It tells the story of Tommy and Cait, a story of shared love and shared jokes, but a story that Tommy has doomed to end unhappily.

Glorify Each Day is the story of how Tommy becomes Teach, a man on a mission and on a quest for redemption – instructor extraordinaire (at least in his own mind) who must become the protector of all the ill-fated youngsters put in his charge. It is the story of Teach and his father, a crusty, foul-mouthed abuser of everyone around him and proof that nuts don’t fall very far from the tree.

Glorify Each Day is a story about storytelling and the many different ways to tell a story – stories about Teach’s students; about superheroes, Jesus, races, raps, rapes; about a young woman who learns how to forgive her father, another young woman who learns how to forgive herself, and another young woman who learns that she doesn’t need anyone’s forgiveness. And these are stories that Teach should be able to learn something from, too, stories that shine a light on lives disfigured by violence and loss.

CHAPTER 1

ONE SUMMER SATURDAY when I was eight, my mom decided she wanted to spend the afternoon visiting with her friend, Mary, who lived about a mile from our house. We lived on a winding country lane, with houses far apart, separated by large tracts of land. My dad was on the road.

“It’s Saturday! Can I just stay here?” I said. Normally, I would spend most of Saturday with Charles, but he was at the beach.

“I’m not leaving you here alone all afternoon. You and Robbie go put on your shoes.”

“I don’t want to!”

“I don’t care if you don’t want to. . . . You two go pick out a couple of games to take with you. You can watch TV.”

As we were getting ready to leave, our Chihuahua, Señor Perro, came running up to us, tail wagging, mouth panting and yapping. Any collective movement within the household would set him off. Mom bent over and vigorously rubbed the dog along both flanks. As was her habit, she started babbling in baby talk. (She had another habit, more unusual – if Señor Perro misbehaved, she would inexplicably translate the dog’s name into English – Mister Dog! Bad Mister Dog! – even though, I suppose, that would have negated any effectiveness of yelling at a Mexican dog.) Although technically belonging to me and Robbie, Señor Perro was most loved by our mom. He, true to his nature, had a tendency to snap at us if we got too rough, which we, true to our natures, usually did.

Robbie and I selected the games we wanted. I chose Monopoly because it took the longest to play. Robbie chose one of his silly kid games called Horsefeathers!, which involved putting strange animal body parts together to create even more unusual creatures.

Mary was an older woman who lived alone, and there wasn’t anything in her house for a kid to get excited about. Robbie and I spent an hour playing Monopoly, arguing incessantly about dice rolls, how to count money, which was the best railroad to land on, what did Water Works mean. At one point Robbie threw all the Community Chest cards at me, and the game was stopped peremptorily by Mom when I lunged at Robbie, grabbed his neck, and tried to make him eat a hotel.

Robbie had a more sedentary disposition than I and seemed satisfied to spend the rest of the afternoon lying on Mary’s living room carpet watching cartoons. But soon after the Monopoly debacle I was desperate to be outside.

My persistent badgering finally paid off.

“Alright, Tommy,” my mom relented. “I’m going to leave in a few minutes anyway. I guess you’ll be okay at home by yourself for a little while. . . . You can go on two conditions. Number one, don’t walk in the road. Stay on the grass. Do you hear me?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Repeat what I just said.”

“Don’twalkintheroad. Stayinthegrass.”

“Okay. And when you get home, stay in the yard. Don’t go into the woods. . . . Now what did I just say?”
“Stayoutofthewoods. Stayoutofthewoods. CanIgonow? CanIgonow?”

Even though Mom had to drive over, it was easy for me to run back home. I stayed on the road all the way. The idea of running on the grass was ridiculous. The ground was uneven and rutted in places; I was much more likely to fall and hurt myself if I followed my mom’s instructions.

The reason I was so eager to leave Mary’s house was because I was excited about practicing my pitching. Dad, a few months ago, had put up a tire swing in the backyard. It didn’t take me long to figure out the swing was also the perfect device to improve my pitching. The tire’s inside circumference was an excellent approximation of the Little League strike zone, and its height off the ground matched the height of most batters my age. Making this development even more exciting, I had finally been able to convince my dad to “ruin” the backyard by building a pretty convincing pitcher’s mound. So far, I had collected five baseballs from various places, which I carried in a toy bucket brought home from the beach. After throwing my five pitches, I would run to the chain-link fence to retrieve them. It was a perfect set-up, though I did wish I had more than five balls to pitch.

When I got back home, after a nearly mile-long sprint, I wasn’t even breathing very hard. I walked around to the side of the house, to where the spare door key was hidden, and let myself in.

Señor Perro was at the door to greet me. In my haste to get my glove and bucket of balls, I ignored the Chihuahua. I tended to ignore the dog anyway, though there were certainly times when both of us were in playful moods and I would wrestle Señor Perro and roll him on the floor – but more often than not this roughhousing would come to an abrupt end when Mister Dog would emerge, turn nasty and snap at me. I had not yet developed a habit of cursing, but would damn the dog in my own little-boy way.

Back outside, I ran to my pitcher’s mound in the backyard. My windup featured a very high left-leg-kick, which allowed me to balance on my right foot and lean the right side of my body backward to the point where I felt almost in danger of toppling over. In this way, I assumed, I would be giving myself the greatest amount of forward momentum possible as I threw the ball toward home plate. My pitches usually made it through the center hole of the tire, although sometimes a ball would ricochet off the inside rubber of the tire before being called a strike by the imaginary umpire.

After a half hour of pitch practice and ball retrieval, I heard Señor Perro barking from inside the house. Señor Perro was impatient and inconsistent when he needed to go outside, so I knew I needed to postpone my fun for a few minutes, if I wanted to prevent Señor Perro from being transformed into bad Mister Dog when Mom returned.

The dog ran outside immediately and scampered into the backyard. We had a high concrete deck with steps leading into the backyard. This side of the deck, facing the back yard, was a formidable concrete wall. And against this wall, which was about as high as I was tall, was Señor Perro’s favorite spot to cock his leg – which he did.

Having done my duty, I was in no mood to play with the dog. I wanted to pick it up and carry it back into the house so I could continue to pitch and to see how many consecutive strikes I could throw. Señor Perro, however, was in no mood to cooperate with me. He ran away when I tried to pick him up. He ran over the top of my pitcher’s mound, under the tire swing and then began running along the perimeter of the fence – with me in full chase. After two laps around the backyard, Mister Dog ran once again under the swing and came to a sudden stop on top of my pitcher’s mound. It was here that the dog started doing the unthinkable. Furious and not believing my eyes, I ran to the dog and picked it up, even though the animal was in full squat, with a long segmented turd hanging halfway to the ground. Señor Perro growled furiously and snapped his jaws at my arms, which were stretched out to full length, as the dog continued to defecate. In my anger, I threw the dog to the ground. Señor Perro once again took off running, this time toward the front of the house.

I wanted to forget about the dog and return to my soiled pitcher’s mound, which would require a bit of excavation before play could resume. But I knew how fearful Mom was about her dog being in the front yard, where there was no protective fence making it safe from traffic. So once again I was forced to postpone my fun in order to be a good son. Señor Perro, however, did not run up the short bank to the front yard. He stopped once more at the bottom of the concrete deck-wall and once more cocked his leg. I took this opportunity to seize the little bandit, and this time I was not going to let go. Still angry at him for desecrating my pitcher’s mound and for taking up so much of my fun-time, I started to squeeze Señor Perro tightly, holding it the way a running back holds a football. The more I squeezed the dog the harder I wanted to squeeze. I felt my arms squeezing tighter and tighter. Tighter still, as my teeth clenched and my arms started to tremble. The dog yelped loudly and struggled to free itself. I was holding it so tightly it could not move its head from side to side in order to bite. Its helpless yelping was muffled beneath my arms.

My anger slowly subsided and I loosened my grip on the dog. Reflexively, Señor Perro snapped viciously at me, grazing my arm with his fangs. I yelled out in pain and all of my anger returned in full force. Señor Perro leaped from my arms, but before the dog could escape, I jumped on it, picked it up with both hands, and with all of my strength hurled the dog toward the concrete wall. Señor Perro howled when he hit the wall and started yelping as he hit the ground. Señor Perro’s pathetic yelps were continuous, metronomic and piercing. Panicked, I could see I had broken the dog’s leg badly. I had no idea what to do. Señor Perro’s yelping was incessant. I reached down toward the dog, but it snapped again, with foam flecking from its mouth. I started running aimlessly around the yard. The dog’s yelping only seemed to be intensifying. I reached the fence at the far end of the yard and reached my fingers through the chain links and began to shake and rattle the fence, to what purpose I don’t remember, except perhaps to drown out the noise of the dog. As I stood shaking the fence, I suddenly thought about Mom and became terrified that she had heard Señor Perro from Mary’s house. I became sure of it. Even more panicked now, I started crying. I released the fence and started walking slowly back toward the dog, which continued to yelp steadily. As I gazed around the yard, I saw a shovel lying against the back of the house – the shovel my dad had used to build my pitcher’s mound. I grabbed the shovel and continued walking toward the dog.

When I got to within a few feet of Señor Perro, his yelping was unbearably loud.

“Shut up!”

The dog continued its crazed yelping.

“Shut up! Shut up!”

I raised the heavy shovel about shoulder-high and brought it down on the dog’s head. There was a metallic clang against the skull, but the dog continued to yelp, now with an even faster cadence.

I raised the shovel again, this time to a full height above my head, and slammed it once again against the dog’s head.

The yelping immediately ceased. Once again I was struck dumb with indecision and fright. I stared down at the dog and threw the shovel behind me; perhaps I was trying to disassociate myself from what I had done. I sat on the ground, cross-legged, still staring at Señor Perro, who lay motionless, a small spot of blood visible on his brown scalp, his hind leg angled grotesquely away from the other three.

I suddenly jumped to my feet and picked up the shovel, as a passing car reminded me Mom would be home soon.

The Chihuahua fit almost perfectly into the blade of the shovel, with only his front leg dangling. It was surprisingly heavy as I carried it across the yard. I slowly lay the shovel aside before I lifted the latch on the gate. When I picked the shovel up again I was careful to keep all the weight properly balanced – especially as I carried the dog along uncertain footing up into the woods. I trudged deeper, deeper, across a soft bed of pine needles, not knowing when to stop – perhaps not wanting to stop, wishing I could continue on forever into a never-ending forest.

Eventually, however, I did stop and slowly began digging through the moist undergrowth until I hit solid dirt. The soil was rocky and the digging became difficult. The grave wasn’t very large, but Señor Perro fit well enough. He would be hidden well by the leaves and needles. Before beginning to cover the dog, I bowed my head and asked God forgiveness. I had stopped crying.

As I finished my short prayer, I was startled to hear my mom shouting my name. The voice was too close to be carrying from the back deck of our house. Once again, I was helpless about what I should do. Mom continued to shout my name, her voice coming closer. I doubted I could finish burying the dog before Mom discovered me. I heard my name called once again, much closer now. I wanted to run away, deeper into the woods, but I must have realized how futile that would have been. Instead, I reached down and picked up the limp body of the dog and began walking slowly toward the sound of my mom’s voice.

As soon as she saw me, and what I was carrying, she ran to me.

“Oh my God.”

I didn’t say anything. She quickly took the dog into her arms.

“Let’s go, Tommy. We’re gonna have to run. We have to get him to the vet.”

“He’s dead, Mama.”

We were running, sticks crunching underfoot.

“No, baby, he’s not dead. He’s not dead. I can feel his heartbeat.”

Robbie started bawling immediately when he saw Señor Perro. On the way to the vet, Señor Perro started to regain consciousness.

“What happened, Tommy?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you leave the gate open?”

“What?”

“I’ve told you repeatedly to make sure that gate stays closed.”

“I’m sorry, mama.”

“Well, I know, son, but as soon as we get back you have to be punished for this.”

“Is Señor Perro gonna be okay?” Robbie asked, his tears dried now that the dog’s eyes were open again. Señor Perro was, I imagine, in shock, strangely silent considering the agony he had been in.

“He’ll be fine, sweetie. The vet will fix his leg.”

“What happened to him?”

“I don’t know, sweetie. He must have fallen down a hill or into a hole. Tommy, where was he when you picked him up?”

“In a hole.”

Which was the only true statement I have ever made about the incident.

– Excerpt from Glorify Each Day

Tags: book spotlight, Glorify Each Day, John Banks

TELEGRAPH ISLAND, by John Milton Langdon, Tate Publishing, 280 pp.

Step back in time to the Victorian age. The industrial revolution in Britain is in full spate and electronic communication is in its infancy. Based loosely on fact author John Milton Langdon weaves a tale of romance and adventure on the high seas and in the Orient.

Jason Smiley Stewart — My Life Story describes the life of an average man. Although he is born in humble circumstances, he shows how a combination of perseverance and intelligence aided by a little good fortune, can help any child overcome the disadvantages of a lowly birth status and poor education.

In Telegraph Island, the second of four novels chronicling the life of Jason Smiley Stewart, the young man’s continuing adventures are described. He has his share of failure and success but once again demonstrates that his poor origins are no bar to fame and fortune when he leaves the life of a sailor to join the communication revolution.

BOOK EXCERPT

I felt on top of the world and ate a hearty breakfast and as I did so I noticed that Joanna was neither eating very much nor looking very happy.  After a time she stopped moving bacon and eggs around her plate, put down her knife and fork and looked at me with a strange and wondering expression.

She said sadly “You seem very happy this morning, Jason.  Are you pleased to be leaving me so soon?”

“No of course not, Joanna” I replied and went on “If I seem happy this morning it’s because I am in love with a most wonderful person and she loves me too.  I can barely believe that I’m really awake and not locked in a wonderful dream.  I don’t want to leave just as we have found each other”.   I held her hand and said “I must go Joanna as I cannot change the arrangements now.  I know that I will be desperately unhappy until we can be together again”.

“Haven’t you forgotten something, Jason?” she asked obscurely.

I did a quick mental review of my packing and replied “I don’t think so Joanna, thank you.  I’m sure I have packed everything”.

She let go of my hand.  “Oh!  Men can be so obtuse at times” she said with some asperity and then asked angrily “Don’t you remember what you said to me in the night?”

“Yes of course”.

“Do you remember my response?”

“Yes of course I do” I said still puzzled by her questions.

And then realisation struck.  She was angry because I had been thoughtless in my misplaced cheerfulness and what was worse I had said nothing about my suggestion that she should be my wife.  It was so much worse that Joanna had found it necessary to remind me about something that should have been my first priority.

What a fool I was.  My euphoric mood drained away like water down a plug hole and at least mentally I kicked myself around the room.

I tried to take her hand but she was still angry with me and moved it out of reach as I said “Darling Joanna, please forgive me for being such an insensitive clod.  I was so happy this morning that I just didn’t think beyond the here and now.   I said last night that I would like you to be my wife and this morning I still feel the same, but I will have to ask your Mother’s permission before I can propose to you”.

“So why just sit there eating breakfast, when my mother is sitting in the next room reading,” was Joanna’s tart reply “She intends to go out shortly”.

I jumped to my feet, left the breakfast room and knocked on the door of the morning room.  I went in when I heard Mrs. Evans call out.  She was sitting in an armchair reading and I stood in front of her chair feeling a little like a child in front of the headmistress.

“Good morning, Jason, I hope you enjoyed a good night’s sleep?”

“I did thank you, Mrs. Evans and I hope you did as well” I said, then paused, not at all sure where to start or what to say.  She looked at me, put her book on the side table and waited patiently for me to continue the conversation without saying a word herself.  I collected my thoughts and failed totally to remain calm as I said without ceremony or preamble “I would like to have your permission to ask Joanna to marry me.  I know it must seem sudden to you, but as I am just about to leave for India I would like to know that Joanna feels as I do and will wait for me to return”.

“Over the tribulations of the past few years I have come to know you quite well, Jason, and I think you will make my daughter a good husband.  I think you have a good future and know that you will provide for her to the best of your ability.  You have my permission to ask her”.

“Thank you Mrs. Evans.  You cannot imagine how relieved I am” I responded formally and returned to the breakfast room where Joanna was waiting.

As I closed the door and walked towards her she said in a worried voice “What did my Mother say?  You weren’t very long.  She didn’t refuse did she?”

I smiled at her, then went down on one knee and asked simply but very seriously “I should be honoured if you would consent to be my wife Joanna.  Please will you marry me?”

– Excerpt from Telegraph Island

You can pick up your copy of Telegraph Island by clicking here.

Tags: adventure, author tour, authors, blog tour, book promotions, book publicity, book tour, books, Britain, Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, high seas, historical fiction, historical fiction author, historical fiction book, historical fiction novel, industrial revolution, John Milton Langdon, online book promotion, Orient, romance, Tate Publishing, Telegraph Island, Victorian age, Victorian Era, virtual book tour

In an excerpt from Barbara Conelli’s new book, Chique Secrets of Dolce Vita, we get to understand just what living a dolce vita life means – having the eyes to see the real beauty, having the nose to smell intoxicating scents, having the ears to hear dreamy sounds, having the mouth to taste delicate flavors, having the body to perceive soft sensations. In a nutshell, it means being aware of yourself, of your emotions and desires, and finding happiness in ordinary unique things. In Barbara’s new book, she uncovers all the sweet, passionate, and dark Milanese secrets that have up to now remained unrevealed. The chique secrets that will teach you to live your own dolce vita no matter where in the world you are. Because la vita e bella, life is beautiful, and the most amazing wonders of this world often hide in the simplest things.

* * *

If we were to attribute human traits to a city, Milan has a refined spirit, ingenious brain, sensual body, elegant walk, and a sweet soul, maybe the sweetest of all Italian cities. Nowhere else will you find so many cafés, patisseries, and bakeries smelling of vanilla than here. All the sweet traditions of sweet-toothed Italy have met on this Milanese crossroad to show off the best that has been pleasing the soul and tongue of Italians for centuries.

Pasticceria Da Antonietta, or Antonietta’s confectionary, in Via Fontanelli, is a sweet-smelling corner of Southern Italy where the sweet charms of Napels and Palermo have been welded for twenty years. That’s where confectioner Antonietta’s parents came from many years ago to look for work. Antonietta grew up surrounded by traditional southern delicacies enriched with ingredients proven over generations that could not miss on Fiduccis’ table at any family lunch or dinner. She studied the intricate alchemy of icings, creams, and fragile dough, she baked, fried, candied, and filled, until rumor of her exceptional art spread all over Milan.

Antonietta started to create sweet surprises for family celebrations, weddings, and various holidays; her sweet hands were as skilful as the hands of reputable confectioners in restaurants of famous names, maybe even more so, and her creations were even more delicious because she made them with the authentic Neapolitan passion.

When Antonietta was twenty-one years old, her heart got broken by seductive, bewitching Francesco, for whom she had been making his favorite profiterole, fluffy cream puffs with a scrumptious filling, for two years. Antonietta found out that Francesco exchanged her sweet love for a daughter of a Milanese councilman, who did not know how to make profiterole but had a fat dowry from her daddy. When Antonietta recovered from Francesco’s betrayal, she decided she would never again dedicate her sweet art only to one man. She opened Pasticceria Da Antonietta, which soon became a far-famed place and a favorite destination of all the Milanese with a sweet tooth.

Today, Antonietta is forty-one but you would say she is at least ten years younger. Her raven-black hair smells of cinnamon, and her Palermo curves that she had inherited from her Sicilian mother drive young Felipe from next door insane, as well as decent seventy-something Mariano from the opposite house. Although she could have made a much bigger business out of her confectionary a long time ago, she still keeps her small store on the corner and makes all the pastry with her own hands. And although her patisserie is full of delicacies from the whole of Italy and even from neighboring France, most clients come back mostly for the irresistible Neapolitan sfogliatelle, pastiere, and the Sicilian cassata. This is the pastry of Antonietta’s childhood, the treasure of the Fiducci family, and Antonietta’s big love. Its baking runs in her blood and she has taken it to complete and unbeatable perfection. And what’s more, over a cup of mint tea, she will tell you its history because Antonietta knows absolutely everything about the sweet love of her heart.

Sfogliatelle are fluffy sweet rolls from Napels, first created by monks from a certain Neapolitan monastery. For many years, the recipe was a secret domain of the monks, simply because only those within the monastery walls had enough time to bake the laborious sfogliatelle. Sfogliatelle are made of fragile dough that is rolled to create several layers, cut into pieces and then filled with orange ricotta or almond paste. The main ingredient is candied lemon peel, giving sfogliatelle their typical scent. Antonietta has her huge lemons delivered directly from the Amalfi coast where they ripen under the Neapolitan sun and are saturated with sea breeze.

Pastiera is a dessert of many aromas, whose origin goes back to the pagan celebrations of the spring. In the middle ages it was rediscovered by a Neapolitan nun who, led by purely spiritual intentions, created this divine yet sinfully profane temptation. This woman of God wanted to prepare an exceptional dessert that would celebrate Christ’s resurrection and smell like orange trees in the convent garden. She mixed flour with home-made ricotta, added eggs as the symbol of a new life, water smelling of infused orange blossoms, the convent’s very own cider, and a combination of oriental spices that gave a spark of pagan sensuality to her devout doings.

The Sicilian cassata was brought to Italy in the ninth century by Arabs, who ruled Sicily for three hundred years. After they left, nuns of Palermo convents took the cassata to perfection, and thanks to them, the cassata of today harmoniously combines the spicy sweetness of Arabic pastries and fruity
flavors of Sicily. This colorful dessert proves that convents were not just a place of asceticism and spiritual contemplation and that they also witnessed completely unspiritual epicurean pleasure. The Palermo cassata is made of a light sponge biscuit that nuns soaked in chaste-fruit juice, which Antonietta replaced with a totally unchaste liqueur that she invented herself. Slices of the sponge biscuit are then pasted together by layers of ricotta and vanilla or chocolate cream. This base is then poured over with a marzipan icing and on top of that, pink and green sugar icings create colorful stripes on the white marzipan. Finally, the cake is decorated with deep-red Sicilian cherries and juicy citruses. What is there left to say? Maybe only Antonietta’s loving words dedicated to cassata: “Just as well the nuns of Palermo didn’t keep this sweet secret to themselves.”

Whether you decide to savor mint tea and Neapolitan pastries in Antonietta’s sweet-smelling paradise or in any of the countless Milanese pasticcerias, you won’t regret it. Milan literally lures you to lose yourself in the delicious delights the city offers wherever you go. Italian’s sweet life is really sweet, and in Milan, maybe twice as much.

Excerpted with permission from Chique Secrets of Dolce Vita, by Barbara Conellia. Available from Flagrans Press. Copyright © 2011.

Barbara Conelli is an internationally published author and Chiquenist on the mission to bring Fantastic Fearless Feminine Fun into women’s lives. In her charming, delightful and humorous Chique Books filled with Italian passion, Barb invites women to explore Italy from the comfort of their home with elegance, grace and style, encouraging them to live their own Dolce Vita no matter where they are in the world.

Barb learned to read and write at the age of four, and a year later, she wrote her first bestselling book that became a big hit in local kindergartens. She turned into an overnight success that lasted for twelve exciting hours. Since then, she has never separated from her writing endeavors. Barb writes even in her sleep and she can often be seen sitting on her bed at three a.m. with a flashlight frantically processing her somnambulant ideas. A born nomad and adventurer, she’s been there, she’s done it, and she’s not afraid to write about it.

An entertaining storyteller, Barb has a unique ability to capture the magical atmosphere of the places she writes about. Through the pages of her books, Barb takes your hand and guides you through the irresistible beauty, captivating secrets, unrepeatable spell and fugitive moments of Italy. She makes them come alive easily and spontaneously, and her writing is like a magic carpet that carries you to Italy and back in the blink of an eye. She introduces you to fascinating women who have created the face of Italy, lifts the shroud of their mysteries, and reveals adorable places off the beaten track where the authentic Italian heart hasn’t stopped beating.

As a naturally curious person who loves traveling, meeting new people and discovering their life stories, Barbara founded Chique Show, an entertaining radio show for women and about women. On Chique Show, Barbara shares her Dolce Vita adventures and interviews inspiring women authors and experts who show listeners how to live their sweet life with gusto.

Barb lives between New York and Milan, and as a real globetrotter, she’s always on the move, accompanied by her adorable and very spoiled beagle. To her, writing is like breathing, and she’s currently working on her new book.

Her latest book is Chique Secrets of Dolce Vita, a narrative travel nonfiction book full of charming, poetic, delightful and humorous travel and life stories about extraordinary Milanese women, men who have succumbed to their temptation and the art of living your own dolce vita no matter where in the world you are.

You can visit her website at www.barbaraconelli.com or connect with her at Twitter at www.twitter.com/barbaraconelli or Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/barbaraconelli.

Tags: Barbara Conelli, Chique Secrets of Dolce Vita, Italian customs, Italian food, Italian women, living in Italy, virtual book tour

Title: Semper Cool
Author: Barry Fixler
Genre: Memoir
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Exalt Press; First edition (December 1, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-0982518404
ISBN-978-0982518403

Semper Cool is the wrenching, sometimes hilarious and always thought-provoking true story of well-off Long Island teenager who enlists in the U.S. Marine Corps seeking adventure and his father’s approval and finds both, plus more danger than he ever could have imagined.

Barry Fixler gets molded into a Marine at Parris Island and sent to Vietnam, where he is assigned to a company that would soon etch its place in Marine Corps lore. Fixler’s Echo Company defends a hill at Khe Sanh against overwhelming enemy numbers in a 77-day battle that is considered one of the greatest military victories in the history of modern warfare.

With its vivid imagery, Semper Cool thrusts the reader into a “grunt’s-eye view” of the blood, guts, tears and laughter of war, as told by a Marine who returned home a man and a patriot. Be prepared to laugh and cry for the men and women willing to risk their lives for the freedoms that so many Americans enjoy.

BOOK EXCERPT:

Vietnam was a helicopter war. Choppers were the main transports for food, ammunition, mail and men. Get in fast. Get out fast. That was the helicopter pilots’ mantra.

One day, during the siege of Khe Sanh, two of our guys got hit real bad. When that happens what you do is take the Marine who’s seriously wounded and put him in a poncho, maybe 100 feet from the landing zone.

One guy takes the poncho by the feet and the other guy gets it by the head and you run to the Medivac chopper. You try to coordinate it so you get there just as the helicopter touches down.

I was holding one of our wounded guys by the head end of his poncho, making eye contact with him. His entire body was soaked with blood. How he was still breathing I don’t know. He was turned inside out. All of his organs were exposed, but he was still alive, and his eyes were fixed into mine.

“You’re going to be fine; you’re going back to the world,” I said to him. “You’re making it back fine. Back home. You’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.”

But I was thinking, “Just die already,” because the guy was already in shock, and he wasn’t going to make it.

The helicopter was on approach and four of us ran out carrying the two wounded Marines. We were catching heavy fire from mortars and rockets. The two guys carrying the first Marine scurried straight inside the helicopter. I was last on the ramp, and as soon as I got there, the pilot started taking off because the helicopter was being riddled with shrapnel. The cockpit glass was a mess. Pieces of it were in the co-pilot’s face. Mortar shrapnel sliced through the hull of the chopper.

I was barely on the ramp and the helicopter started lifting off. Next thing I knew, I was dangling from the ramp clinging to the poncho, and I couldn’t reach anything else to hold.

I lost my grip. For one quick second, I opened my eyes and actually saw the tops of trees. I was falling from the sky, and the only thing I could think of was that I was above the trees.

I had enough time to tell myself to curl in a ball, like doing a cannonball at the swimming pool, and close my eyes and wait to hit the ground.

That’s what I remember, waiting, waiting for the pain … But when I hit I bounced straight up. Swear to God, just like a trampoline.

I was thinking, “What the … ?!” I had no idea what I had landed on. The first time, I must have bounced 10, 15 feet, but it felt like jumping out of a six-story building onto a trampoline. Like I hit and bounced up three floors, then two floors, then one.

At the same time my helmet flew off, and—how I was thinking to do all of this, I don’t know—I tried to flatten myself out so I wouldn’t be such an easy target for the enemy.

I was still wondering what I had landed on by the time I reached cover. Well, for about six weeks, none of us had wanted to get our mailbags. The helicopters would come and drop mailbags, but no one wanted to run out the hundred feet under fire to get them. We had to get our ammunition and food, but screw the mailbags. We weren’t gonna get killed for mailbags.

So the mailbags piled up. They must’ve been stacked four, five feet high, and I’d landed right in the middle of them. That’s why I bounced: Those mailbags that nobody wanted to risk their lives for saved me.

The three guys who got stuck on the chopper made it back the next afternoon while I was eating C-rations in one of the trench bunkers where we slept. I could hear them talking to the other guys.

“We seen Fix get blown out of the helicopter! We seen Fix get blown apart!”

Their eyes saw me fly out the back of a helicopter in mid-air while under heavy fire, so they assumed I was dead. When they finally saw me sitting in the bunker they looked like they’d seen a ghost.

“But we saw you get blown out of the helicopter!”

“That’s right, but I’m right here. Yo! I’m fine.”

We always appreciated the mail.

– Excerped from Semper Cool by Barry Fixler

Tags: Barry Fixler, Book Excerpts, memoir, Semper Cool, vietnam, vietnam memoir

Title: Chasing Zebras: The Unofficial Guide to House, M.D.
Author: Barbara Barnett
Genre: Television Nonfiction
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Ecw Press (September 1, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-1550229559
ISBN-13: 978-1550229554

Medical students are taught that when they hear hoofbeats, they should think horses, not zebras, but Dr. House’s unique talent of diagnosing unusual illnesses has made House, M.D. one of the most popular and fascinating series on television. In Chasing Zebras: The Unofficial Guide to House, M.D., Barbara Barnett, co-executive editor of Blogcritics magazine and widely considered a leading House expert, takes fans deep into the heart of the show’s central character and his world, examining the way this medical Sherlock Holmes’s colleagues and patients reflect him and each other; how the music, settings, and even the humor enhance our understanding of the series’ narrative; what the show says about modern medicine, ethics, and religion; and much more. Complete with an episode-by-episode guide and quotes from her numerous Blogcritics interviews with cast members, producers, and writers, Chasing Zebras is an intelligent look at one of television’s most popular shows.

BOOK EXCERPT:

“It is an axiom of medicine: “when you hear hoofbeats, you think horses, not zebras.” Dr. Gregory House and his elite team of diagnostic fellows chase medicine’s “zebras” — the anomalies, the odd presentations, the diseases so rare that most doctors would not have encountered them in a normal medical practice.

House, M.D. is, itself, a zebra in a herd of horses. It is a rare find of a show blessed with consistently sharp, intelligent writing: densely packed and multifaceted. It features one of the most complex characters ever to have been written for the small screen, Dr. Gregory House, brought to life through Hugh Laurie’s brilliant and nuanced performance.

I grew up on TV. By age nine, I was hooked on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and by 11, I was addicted to Star Trek classic. Nowadays, I have little time for series television. But when I get hooked on a television show, I really get hooked, and so it is with House, M.D.

Whenever the media say that women are attracted to House because he’s a “bad boy,” I tend to cringe first and then shake my head in disagreement. I don’t like “bad boys” — real or fictional. I like my heroes, well . . . heroic. Heroic, but tragically flawed: equal parts Mr. Knightley and Edward Rochester; Mr. Spock and Rick Blaine.

House has a “public persona” and also one he keeps tightly under wraps, reluctant to reveal — to anyone. Publicly, he’s a brilliant diagnostician, intuitive, deductive, and eerily smart. He’s also a risk taker and more than a tad reckless.

In many ways he’s an adolescent boy constantly hatching his next manipulation or elaborate game. He’s crude and rude. House’s closest associates tell us that House cares only about the puzzle. No messiah complex for him; he has a Rubik’s complex instead. But how does this image reconcile with the times we’ve seen him gazing yearningly from behind the glass into patient rooms, watching them with their families? How often do we observe the arrogant and egotistical Gregory House late at night, alone in his office or apartment, desperately searching for answers inside himself long after everyone else has gone home? Like the show that bears his name, House is as complex and rare as the medical cases he takes on: a zebra amongst the horses.

This book is a highly subjective look at a great television series through one fan’s perspective. Another writer might focus on the medicine, the humor, or the mysteries. But I view House, M.D. fundamentally as a detailed character study: House’s journey, his struggles, and the people in his orbit. This is the lens through which I enjoy House — and through which I understand it.

There are chapters here on the writing, the structure, and the elements that make House, M.D. such a fascinating series. There are chapters on each of the characters and some of the show’s oft-visited themes viewed through “closer looks” at key episodes. I’ve also included an extensive six-season episode guide.

Although there are episode guides all over the Internet offering episode recaps and credits (and even in-depth analyses, including my feature at Blogcritics), this guide is slightly different. It’s a road map through the series, showing you the highlights from six seasons: memorable scenes, House’s patented eureka moments, clinic patients, relationship highlights, music, and more — all from a fan’s perspective.”

Visit Barbara Barnett on the web at www.barbarabarnett.com.

Tags: author promotions, Barbara Barnett, Book Excerpts, book promotions, Chasing Zebras, Fox network, House, House M.D., nonfiction, nonfiction television

Title: The Accidental Millionaire
Author: Gary Fong
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Ben Bella Books
Language: English
ISBN-1933771917
ISBN-978-1933771915

The Accidental Millionaire is the memoir of Gary Fong, would-be slacker who revolutionized wedding photography, inventor of popular photography aids, entrepreneur, contrarian, bon vivant and a man who really, really didn’t want to become a doctor. A first-generation Chinese-American, Gary was raised in one of Los Angeles’ least-desirable neighborhoods and was forced to deal—in his own quirky and often very funny way—with the burdens of poverty, crime and his parents’ relentless aspirations. These issues almost overwhelmed him until he had a dramatic epiphany. Spotting a bumper sticker that read “Since I gave up hope, I feel much better,” Gary promptly did just that.

He stopped trying and started succeeding. At turns hilarious, insightful and instructive, The Accidental Millionaire is Horatio Alger-meets-David Sedaris. Turning the traditional self-help principles upside down, The Accidental Millionaire disdains the goal-oriented approaches of traditional self-help philosophies. Sometimes not knowing where you are going is the best possible way to get there.

………………………………………………

Book Excerpt:

My life has not gone according to “The Plan.”

The Plan was for me to go to medical school and eventually pull down a respectable salary of about $150,000 a year.

Had I gone with The Plan, by this point in my life (I’m in my mid-forties) I probably would have just finished paying off my student loans and would be eyeing that thirty-two-foot Catalina sailboat with the FOR SALE sign that I passed every night on my way home from the clinic. I’d be settled into a comfortable home in the ‘burbs, with my wife of twenty years and me 2.3 kids, driving a Lexus sedan. And living the life of my dreams.

Well, my parents’ dreams.

Which I tried, for a time, to convince myself were my dreams too.

Following The Plan made me cry a lot. Eventually I found myself with a literal gun to my own head. That’s when I ran from The Plan and began an adventure into uncharted territory.

Uncharted territory goes completely against the grain of my upbringin.

My parents were first-generation Asian immigrants. Their lives’ territory was very well charted. And they’d charted mine too. My destiny was determined before I was born, and I had absolutely no say in it. My parents didn’t know (or particularly care) if I was going to be gay or blind or a violent psychopath. All they knew was that I was going to be a doctor. Secondarily to that, of course, I would be married at a young age to a nice Chinese girl whom my mother endorsed, and I would deliver my mother numerous grandchildren for her to spoil. ASAP.

While I was growing up, my family suffered through sobering bouts of poverty. My parents sacrificed everythign to ensure that I could get a good education. All they wanted was for me to not have to face the same financial struggles that they had. As a side benefit, they also weren’t going to mind the privilege of saying, “My son, the doctor.”

I didn’t want to live in poverty either, so I gave The Plan a go for ma ny years. I even got a degree in pharmacology in my attempt to become a physician.

I failed.

And what did I do instead? I became a wedding photographer.

You can imagine the songs of joy this caused to leap from my parents’ hearts.

And yet, spring-boarding from that career, which began with moving back into my parents’ apartment and shooting weddings for $150 each, I became a multi-millionaire within a fairly short period of time. And it happened due to one improbably accident after another.

The Accidental Millionaire is available to order at Amazon. To find out more about Gary Fong, visit his website at www.garyfongaccidentalmillionaire.com.

Tags: Ben Bella Books, blog tour, book entrepreneur, book promotions, book publicity, book tour, Gary Fong, inventor, Lightsphere, memoir, online book promotion, Paul McCartney, Photo printing, Pictage, renowned photographer, Ronald Reagan, story-booking, Sylvestor Stallone, The Accidental Millionaire, virtual blog tour, virtual book tour, wedding photography

Title: Full Moon at Noontide: A Daughter’s Last Goodbye
Author: Ann Putnam
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Southern Methodist University Press
Language: English
ISBN-0870745557
ISBN-978-0870745553

This is the story of my mother and father and my dashing, bachelor uncle, my father’s identical twin, and how they lived together with their courage and their stumblings, as they made their way into old age and then into death. And it’s the story of the journey from one twin’s death to the other, of what happened along the way, of what it means to lose the other who is also oneself.

My story takes the reader through the journey of the end of life: selling the family home, re-location at a retirement community, doctor’s visits, ER visits, specialists, hospitalizations, ICU, nursing homes, Hospice.  It takes the reader through the gauntlet of the health care system with all the attendant comedy and sorrows, joys and terrors of such things.  Finally it asks: what consolation is there in growing old, in such loss?  What abides beyond the telling of my own tale? Wisdom carried from the end of the journey to readers who are perhaps only beginning theirs.  Still, what interest in reading of this inevitable journey taken by such ordinary people?  Turned to the light just so, the beauty and laughter of the telling transcend the darkness of the tale.

During the final revisions of this book, my husband was dying of cancer, and he died before I could finish it. What I know so far is this: how pure love becomes when it is distilled through such suffering and loss–a blue flame that flickers and pulses in the deepest heart.

As I finish this book he is gone three months.

Book Excerpt:

Writing this now in a rainy light after loss upon loss, a memory comes to me. When I was a teenager, I took voice lessons from Ruth Havstad Almandinger, who gave me exercises and songs I hardly ever practiced. I have wondered why this memory has so suddenly come to me now, and why this, the only song I remember, comes back to me whole and complete:

“Oh! my lover is a fisherman/ and sails on the bright blue river
In his little boat with the crimson sail/ sets he out on the dawn each morning
With his net so strong/ he fishes all the day long
And many are the fish he gathers
Oh! My lover is a fisherman
And he’ll come for me very soon!”

If only I’d known then that my true love would be a fisherman, I might have practiced that song harder and sung it with more feeling, which was what Ruth Havstad Almandinger was always trying to get me to do. If only I’d had a grown up glimpse of my true love when I was sixteen, I would have sung that song so well. If only I’d known he would have cancer and go to the lake for healing the summer after the radiation treatments were done. If only I’d known that I would be his fishing partner that miracle summer of the sockeye come into the lake from the sea. If only I’d known that the cancer would return and that I would do everything I could to save him, knowing all along that he could not be saved, and that my heart would break beyond breaking, then break again. If only I’d seen the sun coming up over the mountains and the sky shift from gray to purple and the pale smudge of light against the mountains turn gold just above the crest. If only I’d seen the sun glinting off those sunslept waters as my love lets down the fishing lines, and off in the distance a salmon leaps—a silver flashing in the sky as if to split the heart of the sun—before it disappears into a soundless splash, in this all too brief and luminous season, to spawn and to die—oh, how I would have sung that song.

Full Moon at Noontide is available to order at Amazon. To find out more about Ann Putnam, visit her website at www.annputnam.com.

Tags: afterlife, aging parents, aging parents help, Ann Putnam, author tours, blog tours, book marketing, book promotion, book publicity, book tour, Full Moon at Noontide, grief, health care industry, how to care for aging parents, loss, memoir, online book promotion, parenting and families, promote your book, sell your book, Southern Methodist University Press, virtual book tours

Title: Take Me Out to the Ballgame
Author: Gary Morgenstein
Paperback: 290 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace
Language: English
ISBN-1448620503
ISBN-978-1448620500

Baseball and bailouts, as American as apple pie. Weaving today’s economic malaise with the powerful magic of a Cinderella baseball team, Take Me Out to the Ballgame is a political baseball novel for our times. The Buffalo Matadors haven’t won a world championship in 37 years, a dying franchise. Until flamboyant Harry Witowsky, a 21st Century George Steinbrenner, buys them, vowing to do whatever is necessary to change the fortunes of the “Door Mats.” Victories and attendance climb as Witowsky creates an Us versus Them mentality at the Stadium. The rally cry of “Where’s My Bailout” replaces “Let’s Go Mats.” Buffalo’s surprising surge resonates with a nation afraid of losing jobs and homes, shaken by terrorist threats, frightened for the future. The Matadors become America’s Team.

Book Excerpt:

“Single and we win, that so much to ask?” Cal Fleisher pleaded, half-rising off the bar stool at Kellogg’s Bar in East Lackawanna.

“We’ve loaded the bases, none out in the last of the ninth, trailing Philly by one run,” Buffalo Matadors announcer Hal McCoy said somberly. “The Phillies have brought in the lefty Lerch to face the lefty Nate Jackson, a percentage move. Cy Trattora is going to leave the youngster in, oh brother, the wheels are spinning here in War Memorial Stadium against the defending world champions and we’re only in the season opener.”

“Come on Nate, get a piece of it.” Cal shoved his legs under his flabby rear, elevating himself sphinx-like.

“And so this broad comes in, biggest pair you’ve ever seen, and she says…” At a table several feet away beneath a Willie Nelson poster, stocky Mickey O’Brien paused theatrically, spreading his hands a little wider. “Nothin.’ Nothin’ at all.” His two friends laughted. Cal tossed them a shy glare.

“…popped up in foul territory. Perez moving over, looking for a play, near the stands, reaches in and…makes the catch,” McCoy groaned. “One down, big big out of Lerch. He jammed Jackson with a fastball on the…”

“Get outta here, Mickey.” The olive-skinned Nino jokingly pushed Mickey on the shoulder.

“like I’d ever lie?” That drew skeptical chuckles. “She kind of sauntered a little here and there.” Mickey swayed in his seat.

Tossing another brief scowl at the noise, Cal leaned forward. “Please turn it up, Tim.”

The bartender grinned sympathetically, upping the sound on the small color set above the bar. “Stop torturing yourself, Cal. Why should this year be any different than any other?

Take Me Out to the Ballgame is available to order at Amazon. To find out more about Gary Morgenstein, visit his website at www.gary.garymorgenstein.com.

Tags: Book Excerpts, Gary Morgenstein, political thriller, Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Title: Moonlight Falls
Author: Vincent Zandri
Genre: Thriller
Paperback: 328 pages
Publisher: R.J. Buckley Publishing (Dec 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0758229208
ISBN-13: 978-0758229205

Moonlight Falls is the Albany, New York-based paranoid tale (in the Hitchcock tradition) of former APD Detective turned Private Investigator/Massage Therapist, Richard “Dick” Moonlight, who believes he might be responsible for the brutal slaying by knife of his illicit lover, the beautiful Scarlet Montana. The situation is made all the worse since Scarlet is the wife of Moonlight’s boss, Chief of Detectives Jake Montana.

Why does Moonlight believe he might be responsible?

He’s got a small fragment of a .22 hollow point round buried inside his brain, lodge directly up against his cerebral cortex. The result of a botched suicide attempt four years prior to the novel’s start, an operation to remove the bullt frag would be too dangerous.

But the bullet causes Moonlight lots of problems, the least of which are the occasional memory loss and his rational ability to tell right from wrong. The bullet frag also might shift at any moment, making coma and/or sudden death, a very real possibility.

Still, Moonlight has been trying to get his life together as of late.

But when Scarlet begs him to make the trip over to her house late one rainy Sunday night to issue one of his “massages,” he makes a big mistake by sleeping with her. Later, having passed out in her bed, he will be rudely awakened by a garage door opening and Jake’s unexpected and very drunken homecoming. Making his impromptu escape out a top floor window, Moonlight will seek the safety of his home.

Two hours later however, he will receive another unexpected visit from Jake Montana. This time the big Captain has sobering news to report. He’s discovered his wife’s mutilated body in her own bed. She’s been murdered and now he needs the P.I. to investigate it in association with Albany ’s “overtaxed” Special Independent Unit before I.A. pokes their nose into the affair. Moonlight takes a big step back. Is it possible he made a second trip to the Montana home-sweet-home and just has no recollection of it? Once there, did he perform a heinous crime on his part-time lover? Or is this some kind of set up by his former boss? Is it really Jake who is responsible for Scarlet’s death? Does he wish for Moonlight to cover up his involvement, seal the case before Internal Affairs starts poking their nose into the situation?

There’s another problem too.

Covering Moonlight’s palms and the pads of his fingers are numerous scratches and cuts. Are these defensive wounds? Wounds he received when Scarlet put up a struggle? Or are they offensive wounds? Wounds he couldn’t avoid when making his attack on Scarlet with a blade? The answer is not so simple since Moonlight has no idea where he acquired the wounds.

Having no choice but to take on the mission (if only to cover his own ass), Moonlight can only hope the answers to his many questions point to his former boss and not himself.

Excerpt:

If you would like to pick up your copy of Moonlight Falls, click here.

Tags: Albany, Albany Police Department, APD Detective, authors, award-winning author, award-winning novelist, blog tour, book campaign, book marketing, book promotion company, book promotions, book publicists, book publicity, book tour, books, brain damage, divorce, drugs, Edgar Allen Poe, essayist, FBI, freelance photojournalist, grave robbery, Hitchcock, illegal organ harvesting, massage therapist, Moonlight Falls, murder, New York, noir, online book tour, photojournalist, private detective, Private Investigator, R.J. Buckley Publishing, Russian Mob, self stabbing, short-term memory, Suicide, thriller, thriller author, thriller novel, Vincent Zandri, virtual blog tour, virtual book tour

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.

Tags: book promotions, Mary Carter, My Sister's Voice, online book promotions, women's fiction, women's fiction author

Rachel, Jessica, and Tiffany all share a difficult secret: they’re all struggling with major financial problems. A sudden divorce has turned Rachel from a stay-at-home mom to a strapped-for-cash divorcee about to enter the workforce for the first time. Tiffany’s spending has been out of control for years, and her mounting credit card bills have put a major strain on her marriage. And Jessica just had the rug pulled out from under her. After struggling her entire life to make ends meet, she’s just gotten engaged to a man with a big bank account…and now he’s asked her to sign a pre-nup.

When the women share their problems at their weekly crafting group, they decide to band together to take control of their finances. As they struggle to bring balance back to their checkbooks and their lives, they learn that some things in life, like good friends, are truly priceless.

This is the exciting premise of Sheila Roberts’ new women’s fiction novel, Small Change (St. Martin’s).

Sheila is no stranger to penning novels and books that speak of friendships among our fellow sisters are her specialty.  Her other books include Love in Bloom, Angel Lane, On Strike for Christmas, and Bikini Season.

How many women in the Virginia Beach area know of a special woman friend they could lean on through thick and thin?  Small Change gives all of us reasons to believe nothing is too hard to tackle as long as we have a little help from our friends.

Here’s a little excerpt from Sheila Roberts’ Small Change:

There it sat, a Cloud Nine queen-sized luxury gold comforter with red ribbon applique and metallic embroidery. Forty percent off. It was the last one left. Tiffany Turner had seen it, and so had the other woman.

The woman caught Tiffany looking at it and her eyes narrowed. Tiffany narrowed hers right back. Her competitor was somewhere in her fifties, dressed for comfort in jeans and a sweater, her feet shod in tennis shoes for quick movement – obviously a sale veteran, but Tiffany wasn’t intimidated. She was younger. She had the drive, the determination.

It took only one second to start the race. The other woman strode toward the comforter with the confidence that comes with age, her hand stretched toward the prize.

Tiffany chose that moment to look over her competitor’s shoulder. Her eyes went wide and she gasped. “Oh, my gosh.” Her hands flew to her face in horror.

The other woman turned to see the calamity happening in back of her.

And that was her undoing. In a superhuman leap, Tiffany bagged the comforter
just as her competitor turned back. Score.

Boy, if looks could kill.

It would be rude to gloat. Tiffany gave an apologetic shrug and murmured, “Sorry.”

The woman paid her homage with a reluctant nod. “You’re good.”

Yes, I am. “Thanks,” Tiffany murmured, and left the field of battle for the customer service counter.

As she walked away, she heard the other woman mutter, “Little beast.”

Okay, now she’d gloat.

She was still gloating as she drove home from the mall an hour later. She’d not only scored on the comforter, she’d gotten two sets of towels (buy one, get one free), a great top for work, a cute little jacket, a new shirt for Brian, and a pair of patent metallic purple shoes with 3 1/2 inch heels that were so hot she’d burn the pavement when she walked. With the new dress she’d snagged at thirty percent off (plus another ten percent off for using her department store card), she’d be a walking inferno. Brian would melt when he saw her.

Her husband would also melt if he saw how much she’d spent today, so she had to beat him home. And since he would be back from the office in half an hour, she was now in another race, one that she didn’t dare lose. That was the downside of hitting the mall after work. She always had to hurry home to hide her treasures before Brian walked in the door. But she could do it.

Tiffany followed the Abracadabra shopping method: get the bargain and then make it disappear for a while so you could later insist that said bargain had been sitting around the house for ages. She’d learned that one from her mother. Two years before, she had successfully used the Guessing Game method: bring home the bargains and lull husband into acceptance by having him guess how incredible little you’d paid for each one.

She’d pull a catch of the day from its bag and say, “Guess how much I paid for this sweater.”

He’d say, “Twenty dollars.”

“Too high,” she’d reply with a smirk.

“Okay. Fifteen.”

“Too high.

“Ten.”

“Nope. Eight ninety-nine. I’m good.”

If you’d like to find out more about Sheila and her books, visit her website at www.sheilasplace.com.  If you’d like to order her book at Amazon, click here.  The book will be available on March 30.

If you’d like to follow her virtual book tour in March and April, click here.

Tags: blog tour, book campaign, book promotions, book publicity, online book promotion, Sheila Roberts, Small Change, virtual book tour, women's fiction, women's fiction author, women's fiction novel

Title: Moonlight Falls
Author: Vincent Zandri
Paperback: 324 pages
Publisher: R. J. Buckley Publishing (November 20, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0981965407
ISBN-13: 978-0981965406

Book Excerpt:

Albany, New York

140 miles northeast of New York City

I’m escorted into a four-walled basement room by two suited agents—one tall, slim and bearded, the other shorter, stockier, cleanshaven.

The space we occupy contains a one-way mirror which I know from experience hides a tripod-mounted video camera, a sound man and several FBI agents, the identities of whom are concealed. There’s no furniture in the room, other than a long metal table and four metal chairs. No wallpaper, no soft lamp light, no piped-in music. Just harsh white overhead light, concrete and a funny worm smell.

As I enter the room for the first time, the tall agent tells me to take a seat at the table.

“We appreciate your cooperation,” the stocky agent jumps in.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch my reflection in the mirror.

I’m of medium height. Not tall, not short. Not too badly put together for having reached the big four-zero thanks to the cross-training routine I put myself on not long after my hospital release. Nowadays, my head is shaved. There’s a small button-sized scar behind my right earlobe in the place where the fragment of .22 caliber hollow-point penetrated the skull. I wear a black leather jacket over black jeans and lace-up combat boots left over from my military service during the first Gulf War. My eyeglasses are rectangular and retrofitted from a pair of cheap sunglasses I picked up at a Penn Station kiosk. They make my stubblecovered face seem slightly wider than it really is. So people have told me.

Having been led to my chair, I am then asked to focus my gaze directly onto the mirror so that the video man or woman stationed on the opposite side of the glass can adjust the shooting angle and focus.

“Please say something,” requests Stocky Agent while removing his suit jacket, setting it over the back of an empty chair.

“There once was a cop from Nantucket ,” I say to break the ice.

But no one laughs.

“You get that?” the taller agent barks out to no one in particular.

“Okay to go,” comes a tinny, hidden speaker voice. “You gonna finish that poem, Mr. Moonlight?”

“Knock it off,” Stocky Agent orders. Then turns back to me.

“Before we get started, can we get you a coffee? A cappuccino? You can get one right out of the new machine upstairs.”

“Mind if I burn one?”

Tall Bearded Agent purses his lips, cocks his head in the direction of a plastic No Smoking placard to the wall.

Stocky Agent makes a sour face, shakes his head, rolls up the sleeves on his thick arms. He reaches across the heavy wood table, grabs an ashtray, and clunks it down in front of me as if it were a bedpan.

“The rule doesn’t apply down here,” he says. Then, in this deep affected voice, he adds, “Let’s get started, Mr. Moonlight. You already know the routine. For now we just want to get to the bottom of the who, what, wheres and hows of this train wreck.”

“You forgot the why,” I say, firing up a Marlboro Light. “You need to know the why to establish an entire familiarity with any given case.”

Stocky Agent does a double take, smiles. Like he knows I’m fucking with him.

“Don’t be a dick, Dick,” he says.

I guess it’s important not to take life too seriously. He laughs. I laugh. We all laugh. Ice officially broken. I exhale some smoke, sit back in my chair.

They’re right, of course. I know the drill. I know it’s the truth they’re after. The truth and almost nothing but the truth. But what they also want is my perspective—my take on the entire Scarlet Montana affair, from soup to peanuts. They want me to leave nothing out. I’ll start with my on-again/off-again love affair with my boss’s wife. Maybe from there I’ll move on to the dead bodies, my cut-up hands, the Saratoga Springs Russians, the Psychic Fair, the heroin, the illegal organ harvesting operation, the exhumations, the attempts on my life, the lies, deceptions and fuck-overs galore.

As a former fulltime Albany detective, I know that nobody sees the same thing through the same set of eyeballs. What’s important to one person might appear insignificant or useless to another. What those federal agents want right now inside the basement interview room is my most reliable version of the truth—an accurate, objective truth that separates fact from fantasy.

Theoretically speaking.

“Ask away,” I say, just as the buzzing starts up in the core of my head.

“Just start at the beginning,” Stocky Agent requests. “We have all night.”

Sitting up straight, I feel my right arm beginning to go numb on me. So numb I drop the lit cigarette onto the table. The inside of my head chimes like a belfry. Stocky Agent is staring at me from across the table with these wide bug eyes like my skull and brains are about to pull a JFK all over him.

But then, just as soon as it all starts, the chiming and the paralysis subsides.

With a trembling hand, I manage to pick up the partially smoked cigarette, exhale a very resigned, now smokeless breath and stamp the cancer stick out.

“Everything you wanna know,” I whisper. “You want me to tell you everything.”

“Everything you remember,” Tall Agent smiles. “If that’s at all possible.”

Stocky Agent pulls a stick of gum from a pack in his pants pocket, carefully unwraps the tin foil and folds the gum before stuffing it into his mouth.

Juicy Fruit. I can smell it from all the way across the table.

By all indicators, it’s going to be a long night.

“I think I’ll take that cappuccino after all,” I say.

For the first time since entering the interview room, I feel the muscles in my face constricting. I know without looking that my expression has turned into something miles away from shiny happy. I’m dead serious.

–Excerpt from Moonlight Falls by Vincent Zandri. If you’d like to find out more about Moonlight Falls, visit the author’s website at www.vincentzandri.com or his blog at www.vincentzandri.blogspot.com. During the months of February and March, Victor will be on virtual book tour. If you’d like to find out where he’ll be touring, visit here.

Tags: Moonlight Falls, thriller novel, Vincent Zandri