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Book Spotlight: Shell Game by A.B. Funkhauser


Hello, I had the privilege to sit down with A.B. Funkhauser about writing and life.

Is Carlos based on any cat that you know?

The Foreward to SHELL GAME was written by horror writer Bri Volinz whose family lives six doors up from me. Like the characters in the novel, we are conjoined by common interests (writing) and a cat. Kobe was adopted by Bri four years ago when she was away at college. Cramped up in a windowless basement apartment, it didn’t take long for her to realize that he was very special. It wasn’t just his higher than normal affection for humans that stood out, but the ease with which he could turn his back on the whole domestic situation without a thought. This laissez faire attitude, in Bri’s own words, led her to conclude that she had to “let him go.” Kobe left Bri’s student apartment and took up residence in her parents’ home in the suburbs. There, he became the toast of the town visiting neighbors, insinuating himself into their homes, and eventually earning the ire of an, as yet, unknown complainant who ratted him out to Animal Control. (I doubt we’ll ever learn the identity of the whistle-blower.)

Keeping cats indoors against their will is a hot button issue among those who seek to protect the public from Lyme Disease, Rabies and fecal infections on the one hand, and those who recognize that some cats will not stay indoors no matter how well-intentioned we, the owners, try to be in keeping them there. Today, Kobe spends most hours inside my home owing to his advancing age—he’s going on five! Wanderlust seems to have abandoned him naturally. Bri and I share co-parent responsibilities—food, healthcare. His range, once vast, is now limited to the six doors between her parents’ home and mine. Are we relieved? Yes! Is he? Probably. He not only lives his life on his own terms, but can revel in its celebration with the release of SHELL GAME. Smart kitty.

What was the first award you received from your writing?

I won Best Horror Novel 2015, Preditors & Editors, and it was very gratifying. Winners were selected based on the number of votes cast by readers and supporters on a daily basis, which meant that ballots could potentially be cast by the same people day after day. What this told me was that my first book had a following that believed enough in it and me to keep voting for it continuously over a two-week period. This meant the world to me. I’ve gone on to win juried competitions—also gratifying—but that first win will always hold a special place.

Any words of wisdom for new writers?

There are so many formulas and gurus out there, and every single one of them has a utility when matched to the right need. Before I’d completed the first act of the first novel, I was advised by the shadowy “them” to “decide on my genre,” “write for the market,” “show don’t tell,” and “get an agent,” among other things. I didn’t do these things not because I was smug, but because I had (and still have) a fantastic critiquing group that I trusted and a publisher that allowed me the critical time I needed to grow and “get it right.” SHELL GAME is my third published novel and with it and the fourth and the fifth work etc., I’ll keep riding the learning curve.

ADVICE: Sit down and write and leave all the other “stuff” for later. There will be plenty of time to buff, polish and LEARN. And join a critiquing group. The members will make you a better writer and you will learn to handle criticism with aplomb.

What made you decide to become a funeral director?

I have the greatest respect for so many professions—day care workers come to mind—but I lacked the courage to pursue them. This was a calling.

Book Description:

Carlos the Wonder Cat lives free, traveling from house to house in a quiet suburban neighborhood. Known by everyone, his idyllic existence is jeopardized when a snarky letter from animal control threatens to punish kitty owners who fail to keep their pets indoors. The $5,000 fine / loss of kitty to THE MAN is draconian and mean, but before Team Carlos can take steps, he is kidnapped by a feline fetishist sex cult obsessed with the films of eccentric Pilsen Güdderammerüng. Stakes are high. Even if Carlos escapes their clutches, can he ever go home?

The third novel in the UNAPOLOGETIC LIVES series, SHELL GAME follows SCOOTER NATION (2016) and HEUER LOST AND FOUND (2015) this time, with an eye on a seemingly pastoral community with a lot to hide. More than a cat and mouse story, Shell Game is an examination of community—who we are and how we relate to one another in a questioning world. Written with tongue firmly in cheek, it asks us to open our eyes, see better, and have a little more patience.

Excerpt:

Escorted with force up creaky wooden stairs into a passageway straight out of Kafka, the cat squirmed as the space opened into a large windowless room. There, light from tall lamps shot white hot from floor to ceiling, their beams reminiscent of Nuremburg on its worst day. These, uniform in design, were placed with deliberate care every six feet or so, like the stations of the cross in a Catholic cathedral. The lack of adornments on the walls and in the cornices, however, made this place anything but holy, the ecclesiastical taking a back seat to amateur theatrical.

Kitty growled a thousand growls, all unheard.

Unlike their hooded counterparts from down below, the humans upstairs concealed their identities not with comic book capes, but with papier mâché masks, obscuring what were probably facial features of little worth. Their bodies, once unshrouded, offered an array of tattoos and piercings. Many were on the heavy side, their adipose jiggling with the multitudes that tried to copulate in interesting ways. Nothing at all like Güdderammerüng’s Blod av Däggdjur, which supported an aesthete both elegant and worshipful, this sexy orgy party tried way too hard to be what it clearly was not.

Large cat statues in the Egyptian fashion added to the absurdity of the occasion. Eight feet tall, the polystyrene golden statues came by way of a prop wrangler and his girlfriend, who had purloined them from a storage locker after a film wrap in Vancouver. Under red-pink lights, the cat sentinels were positioned in equal numbers on either side of a large altar, marked by numerous fetish objects and eschatological symbols. In line with the forced revelry that abounded, their uses gained currency with the rather strange choice of Seventies-era rock music that assaulted the senses.

Working up a large hairball, Carlos barely caught his breath for all the hookah vapors filling the room. Humans of all genders did what they did together, separately and severally. Many appeared older, their sagging midsections reminding him of the old Tom’s that lived out their lives in the Banford barn outside Cavan.

Claiming to want something more, something more in line with Güdderammerüng’s vision, their attempts at consciousness raising from the “darkness to the light” fell flat. These humans, for all their writhing and hookah smoking, fundamentally lacked what the cats had: that state of grace that comes with knowing who you are and what you’re here for.

PRAISE

“…writes with a take-no-prisoners style of prose.”

  • Steve Cronin, AMERICAN FUNERAL DIRECTOR MAGAZINE

“Funkhauser digs down deep into each character and shatters the lines of morality, showing us the darkness and light within all of them...”

  • Angela D’Onofrio, Author FROM THE DESK OF BUSTER HEYWOOD

"Funny, quirky, and sooooo different."

—Jo Michaels, JO MICHAELS BLOG

Author Biography:

Toronto born author A.B. Funkhauser is a funeral director, classic car nut and wildlife enthusiast living in Ontario, Canada. Like most funeral directors, she is governed by a strong sense of altruism fueled by the belief that life chooses us, not we it.

Her debut novel Heuer Lost and Found, released in April 2015, examines the day to day workings of a funeral home and the people who staff it. Winner of the Preditors & Editors Reader’s Poll for Best Horror 2015, and the New Apple EBook Award 2016 for Horror, Heuer Lost and Found is the first installment in Funkhauser’s Unapologetic Lives series. Her sophomore effort, Scooter Nation, released March 11, 2016 through Solstice Publishing. Winner of the New Apple Ebook Award 2016 for Humor, and Winner Best Humor Summer Indie Book Awards 2016, Scooter picks up where Heuer left off, this time with the lens on the funeral home as it falls into the hands of a woeful sybarite.

A devotee of the gonzo style pioneered by the late Hunter S. Thompson, Funkhauser attempts to shine a light on difficult subjects by aid of humorous storytelling. “In gonzo, characters operate without filters which means they say and do the kinds of things we cannot in an ordered society. Results are often comic but, hopefully, instructive.”

SHELL GAME, tapped as a psycho-social cat dramedy with death and laughs, is the third book in the series, and takes aim at a pastoral community with a lot to hide. “With so much of the world currently up for debate, I thought it would be useful to question—again—the motives and machinations championed by the morally flexible, and then let the arbiter be a cat.”

Funkhauser is currently working on THE HEUER EFFECT, the prequel to HEUER LOST AND FOUND.

Other Books by A.B. Funkhauser:

HEUER LOST AND FOUND (2015)

Unrepentant cooze hound lawyer Jürgen Heuer dies suddenly and unexpectedly in his litter-strewn home. Undiscovered, he rages against God, Nazis, deep fryers and analogous women who disappoint him.

At last found, he is delivered to Weibigand Brothers Funeral Home, a ramshackle establishment peopled with above average eccentrics, including boozy Enid, a former girlfriend with serious denial issues. With her help and the help of a wise cracking spirit guide, Heuer will try to move on to the next plane. But before he can do this, he must endure an inept embalming, feral whispers, and Enid’s flawed recollections of their murky past.

SCOOTER NATION (2016)

Aging managing director Charlie Forsythe begins his work day with a phone call to Jocasta Binns, the unacknowledged illegitimate daughter of Weibigand Funeral Home founder Karl Heinz Sr. Alma Wurtz, a scooter bound sextenarian, community activist, and neighborhood pain in the ass is emptying her urine into the flower beds, killing the petunias. Jocasta cuts him off, reminding him that a staff meeting has been called. Charlie, silenced, is taken aback: he has had no prior input into the meeting and that, on its own, makes it sinister.

The second novel in the UNAPOLOGETIC LIVES series, SCOOTER NATION takes place two years after HEUER LOST AND FOUND. This time, funeral directors Scooter Creighton and Carla Moretto Salinger Blue take center stage as they battle conflicting values, draconian city by-laws, a mendacious neighborhood gang bent on havoc, and a self-absorbed fitness guru whose presence shines an unwanted light on their quiet Michigan neighborhood.

LINKS

Awards

New Apple E-Book Award 2016 “Humor” SCOOTER NATION

New Apple E-Book Award 2016 “Horror” HEUER LOST AND FOUND

Winner Summer Indie Book Award (SIBA) 2016 “Humor” SCOOTER NATION

Winner Preditors & Editors Readers’ Poll 2015 “Horror” HEUER LOST AND FOUND

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Book Spotlight: Xaghra’s Revenge by Geoff Nelder


Hello. I had the pleasure of being able to speak with Geoff Nelder about his latest release, his life, and writing.

Why did you decide to take a vacation in Malta?

For many years there has been a close relationship between the Mediterranean island of Malta and the UK. England took it from the French in 1800 and the islands became a protectorate until independence in 1964. The relationship deepened in the second world war when British and Allied forces defended it when the Axis forces tried to bomb it into submission because of its strategic position between Suez and Gibraltar. If you go to Malta you’ll see England everywhere in telephone boxes, pubs, clubs, and English is widely spoken. It’s a natural holiday resort for the English because they are made welcome in their own language in a warm sunny climate.

You've just added Malta to my list of places I need to visit. It sounds beautiful.

What led you to discover that the whole town of Xaghra was abducted?

Ah, if only it was just Xaghra whose people were taken in 1551. The pirates took every person from the whole island of Gozo. About 5,000 people, leaving only a few very old and infirm behind. Some others who wouldn’t fetch a good price were thrown overboard en route to Tripoli. I found out via an exhibition for tourists in their capital, Victoria.

I didn't know that many people disappeared on an island. It's a shocking number. I need to know one more thing.

Why do you think history books have left out the town of Xaghra being abducted?

History is written, or at least shaped, by the victors? It’s not that the mass abduction is completely left out, but barely featured. Maybe it’s because such horrors were relatively common in that era. That pirate, Rais Dragut (sometimes called Turgut Reis 1485-1565), had butchered thousands in various campaigns. It was a brutal time. He was captured himself for a while and made to be a galley slave. So, Gozo was maybe the worst example of wholesale captivity of innocents at that time. Why little mention in history and fiction books? I found few on Gozo getting steamed up about it. Maybe because they were descended not from the abducted, who were mostly taken to Tarhuna, Libya and stayed there, but from others who came to take over the empty houses. Someone had to beat the drum for those Gozo people and it’s ME!

Rais Dragut was another person left out of the history books I read. I'm glad you are beating the drum for those Gozo people. Someone needs to step forward and let those voices be heard.

What got you into cycling?

My dad had to cycle to travel between his army barracks and home – a round trip of 120 miles every weekend. He couldn’t afford a car and enjoyed the wind in his hair and the sense of achievement of topping the hills. He took me on long rides too and the exhilaration is still there. My legs get withdrawal symptoms after 3-non-cycling days.

What advice would you give someone who's looking to get into cycling?

Assuming you can keep upright at more than walking pace, don’t be afraid of drop handlebars and migrate to using cleats on your pedals as soon as you can. They make your body more efficient and hence enjoyable. Read French Revolutions by Tim Moore (2001) hilarious and inspirational.

Are you currently working on any freelance work? If you are, please tell us about it if you can.

I often write articles for cycling magazines and edit other people’s novels and short stories. I’ve just competed a ghost writing assignment. A cross between Fifty Shades and Gardner’s World. If your mind is boggling, so were my fingers. Luckily, my name won’t feature.

What genres do you write?

With my novels as examples: mostly science fiction as in Exit, Pursued by a Bee and Chaos of Mokii.

Medical mystery / scifi as in the ARIA Trilogy.

Historical fantasy as in Xaghra’s Revenge.

Humorous thriller as in Escaping Reality

Straight thriller as in Hot Air.

What's your favorite genre to write in?

I love taking my imagination into them all but science fiction is where I can escape the most.

If you had to pick one book that you've written for everyone to read, what would it be?

I would say ARIA: Left Luggage is a surprise for non-science fiction readers who think the cover art of an astronaut means it’s in space when really it is a medical mystery on Earth. There’s lust, romance, mystery, adventure, preppers, escape, survival, human relationships and the beautiful scenery of a real but hidden valley in mountainous North Wales.

I was surprised by this answer. I thought it would have been Xaghra’s Revenge. ARIA: Left Luggage sounds like a great book to read also. They are both added to my list to read.

What if… I hadn’t gone to Malta on a holiday and discovered an awful, yet generally unknown truth: the mass abduction of a whole island into slavery? Only a handful of historical novels touched on this event and even the local historians didn’t seem to think it worth shouting about. I did. I wanted revenge for those 5,000 abducted souls and gave it to them in Xaghra’s Revenge.

Xaghra is a real town on the small Mediterranean island of Gozo. I chose it to begin the story because I’ve been there many times. It’s the site of the world’s oldest building, The Ggantija Temple – older than the pyramids and Stonehenge! I’ve hugged those huge limestone blocks and the vibes touched me. I’ve stood in the spot where Stjepan hears the alarm bell, where he sees his friends chased by pirates, and outside his house. It’s personal.

This opening sets the story with a contrast and conflict: an idyllic rural and family scene versus a worrying incursion threatening to disrupt everything.

CHAPTER ONE from XAGHRA’S REVENGE published 15th July 2017 via Solstice Shadows, imprint of Solstice Publishing.

The Mediterranean island of Gozo 1551, July 24th

Stjepan leaned on his hoe and listened. His beans needed rescuing from the bindweed, but they’d have to wait if that was the warning bell coming from the city.

Five… He stepped up onto a low limestone wall and scanned the horizon. A flock of starlings created an air sculpture – God’s chariots chasing each other. It always lifted his heart.

Six… The Citadel topped the hill to the west; the clock tower visible, but he couldn’t see if people were running up the lanes to the city walls.

Seven, eight… He strained to see, but hills prevented a clear view of the ocean even though Gozo was less than a day’s ride across.

Nine… Perhaps a pirate ship had been seen again. The damned Turkish corsairs raided more often these days. Pirate dogs. He spat at the soil. His short sword lay under his cot at home.

Ten... In spite of the heat, he shivered at the thought of his wife and four-month-old son thrown into the dank belly of a corsair galley.

Eleven, twelve… He held his breath as if that aided hearing. The starlings swirled around the citadel as if they knew something. His heart sank.

Thirteen, fourteen… curses.

He drove his hoe into the stony soil, wishing it was Dragut’s black heart. Stjepan picked his way through berry bushes and olive trees until he reached his village, Xaghra. Karlu, his neighbour, called as he walked in the opposite direction towards the capital, Rabat.

“Ho, Stjepan, you’ll get fined again.”

“I’m not going without Lidia and my son. Your wife?”

Karlu stopped, scratched his head and twitched his moustache. “In Rabat, staying at her mother’s. She’s been coughing up hairballs.”

“That’s cats. Ah, you never liked Senora Angelina. I’ll see you there.”

In spite of the humour, panic tightened his chest as he ran across the central square. Stjepan saw his marmalade cat, its tail upright. She possessed a sense for trouble. “Heket, you’re supposed to be Lidia’s guardian.”

He frowned pushing past neighbours then saw Lidia waving at him outside the church.

“Father’s tripped on the steps. He can’t walk to Rabat.”

“He’ll have to go on the priest’s cart.”

“Already gone.”

Stjepan gnawed on a knuckle while his brain raced. He couldn’t afford another florin fine, yet the alert was probably another false alarm.

“I’ll carry your father.” Blood seeped through Alfredo’s grey robe from his knee. His eyes apologised.

Stjepan crouched before the old man. “Come on, I’ll carry you on my back.”

They crossed the wide village square. Stjepan found the old man lighter than he expected. Nevertheless, he stopped.

“What about Calypso’s Cave?”

“No.” Lidia breathed heavily carrying infant Pietru. “It’d be too obvious a hiding place. Keep going.”

He did, with increased pace until he reached the top of the steep scarp slope. The lane wriggled as it fell to the valley floor before climbing the Citadel’s slopes an hour’s walk away. They could see the exodus along the most direct route from Xaghra to Rabat.

Lidia stopped. “No.”

“What?” He followed her free arm pointing to the north. A dozen men ran along the valley floor lane. Their scimitars flashed in the midday sun, and their white turbans gave them away as Turkish corsairs. Stjepan put the old man down, then cupped his hands.

“Karlu!”

A mistake. Noise travelled far in this rock-lined valley. Karlu stood and turned to others around him, who’d also stopped. Instead of rushing on to the safety of the huge stone-walled Citadel, they walked back towards Stjepan, but it was too late. The Turks reached the escaping group. The Gozitans were overpowered in moments.

Now that route was barred, Stjepan picked up Alfredo and walked back to the deserted village.

“There might be more of them.”

“Then we’re not safe here either.” Lidia sat on a stone block.

“I know a place big enough for Pietru and your father.” No one else in the village knew about a discovery he’d made a year ago in a pile of rubble to the southwest of the village. He was digging out a well. Tingling had travelled up Stjepan’s back when he was a couple of spade lengths down. At night he began having dreams of discovering a jewelled cave. All he found was a dank, dark hole, and yet there was something special down there. He’d kept it quiet. It was Stjepan’s magic place, because he always sat with a calm, relaxed air down there. Maybe it was because he couldn’t see poverty, and in the cave he’d found a small figurine of a reclining woman–all breasts and buttocks. His elation at his private find continued that night during his lovemaking with Lidia. He’d convinced himself that Pietru was conceived as a result of magic emanating from the fertility goddess, if that was what she was. Tzabib, the mythical Spirit of old Gozo.

“So this is where you sneak off to when you’re supposed to be working,” Lidia said, after Stjepan pulled back shrubs to uncover the laddered hole.

“By keeping it a secret, none of the villagers will be able to lead the pirates to us.”

* * *

To read more of this chapter head over to Amazon Kindle http://myBook.to/Xaghra Free on Kindle Unlimited

There’s another excerpt from Chapter two where two modern young lovers have their inauspicious and suspicious first meeting.

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Twitter @geoffnelder

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Debbie De Louise FREE book, New Releases, Author Visit, and a PARTY


Wow, Debbie you have a lot going on. I'll just let you take it away. My blog is all yours: ​

Don't miss my free offer for my historical paranormal romance, The Seashell and the Stone. Free only on Friday, August 18.

After breakfast, Virginia changed into a sundress, donned her wide-brimmed straw hat, and chose one of her prettiest parasols for the stroll on the Boardwalk with Mr. Granger. When he met her downstairs, he still wore the same clothes but had added a beige cap that Virginia found quite stylish.

“Miss Vance, that outfit certainly becomes you. I hope you do not mind that I tend to some business matters during our visit to the beach.”

Virginia decided to play the role of a coy young woman as she batted her eyelashes and replied, “Not at all, Mr. Granger, as long as you spend a little time with me.”

He smiled, obviously happy with her comment. “Shall we, then?” He stopped as he reached the inn’s doors. “Does your father allow you to walk down to the beach alone with gentlemen?”

Virginia’s laugh was not part of her act. She genuinely thought the statement funny. “Of course, Mr. Granger. I’m nineteen, an old maid by some standards.”

“If you’re an old maid, I must be an ancient relic at twenty-three.” He held the door open for her to pass.

On Tuesday, August 22nd, my romance, Saving Snow White, and my mystery, Dying for a Vacation, will be released for only 99 cents each.

When Amy comes home from veterinary school for the summer, she is reunited with her best friend, Tom. When she learns he has a girlfriend who is totally unsuited to him, she wonders if she has let her chance go by.

Detective Donald Jackson is preparing for a long-awaited vacation, but first, he must solve the case of a murdered librarian at the Flower Hill Public Library.

Here's an excerpt from Dying for a Vacation: The FHPL was one of the last holdouts of the New Hampshire library system to retain an un-automated system of checking library holdings. I didn’t care much for the OPAC’s of the larger libraries, anyway, with their computer databases that always seemed to freeze when I was looking for the next book in Lilian Jackson Braun’s “Cat Who” series. Braun is my favorite mystery author. Like her character, Jim Qwilleran, I have a handlebar mustache that’s pretty sensitive, although it doesn’t help me solve crimes. I love cats, too, but I only have one and it isn’t Siamese. Tinky is just a stray Emily brought to my house one day about five years ago. One of her daughters from her second marriage was allergic to it, so she thought I might like it to keep me company. She knew I liked cats, although we didn’t have any when we were married. No kids either. All the time I spent on cases back in Boston probably made a girl her age pretty lonely.

Last, but not least, please join me and my fellow Solstice authors at Solstice Publishing's Eclipse Facebook Party for giveaways, prizes, Q & A's, and a scavenger hunt. This will take place on Friday, August 18 at https://www.facebook.com/events/453215681732436/.

If you are in the Long Island area on that day, please also join me at the Hicksville Library for my author talk at 1:30 p.m.

Debbie, thank you for stopping by. -K.A.

Contact:

Email me at kamengauthor@gmail.com

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