Guest Blogger 3/4

Happy Birthday to Debbie De Louise & You FREEBIE & 99 Cent Sale

K. A. Meng
May 7, 2017
3 min read

To celebrate my birthday, I’m giving away free copies of my first Cobble Cove mystery, A Stone’s Throw, and also offering the second book, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, for only 99 cents. Both these offers are good on my birthday, Tuesday, May 9, and the day after, Wednesday, May 10. In addition, both books including my latest, Written in Stone, will be on tour with Great Escapes Book tours from May 5 to May 13.

A Stone’s Throw

Free on Amazon 5/9 – 5/10

myBook.to/Stonesthrow2

Widowed librarian Alicia Fairmont needs answers… After her husband is killed in a hit and run accident, Alicia travels upstate to his hometown of Cobble Cove, New York. She hopes to locate his estranged family and shed light on his mysterious past. Anticipating staying only a weekend, her visit is extended when she accepts a job at the town’s library. Secrets stretch decades into the past… Assisted by handsome newspaper publisher and aspiring novelist, John McKinney, Alicia discovers a connection between her absent in-laws and a secret John’s father has kept for over sixty years. Her investigation is interrupted when she receives word her house has burned and arson is suspected, sending her rushing back to Long Island, accompanied by John. Back in Cobble Cove, cryptic clues are uncovered… When Alicia returns, she finds a strange diary, confiscated letters, and a digital audio device containing a recording made the day her husband was killed. Anonymous notes warn Alicia to leave town, but she can’t turn her back on the mystery—or her attraction to John. As the pieces fall into place, evidence points to John’s involvement in her husband’s accident. The past and present threaten to collide, and Alicia confronts her fears… Has she fallen in love with her husband’s killer?

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

99 cents on Amazon 5/9 – 5/10

myBook.to/CobbleCove2

Librarian Alicia McKinney has put the past behind her… Two years ago, Alicia discovered both a terrible truth and lasting love with John McKinney in the small town of Cobble Cove, New York. Now a busy mother of twin babies and co-author of a mystery series, Alicia couldn’t be happier. Alicia’s contentment and safety are challenged… Walking home alone from the library, Alicia senses someone following her, and on more than one occasion, she believes she is being watched. Does she have a stalker? When the local gift shop is burglarized, the troubling event causes unrest among Alicia and the residents of the quiet town. John and Alicia receive an offer they can’t refuse… When John’s sister offers to babysit while she and John take a much-needed vacation in New York City, Alicia is reluctant to leave her children because of the disturbances in Cobble Cove. John assures her the town is safe in the hands of Sheriff-elect Ramsay. Although Alicia’s experience with and dislike of the former Long Island detective don’t alleviate her concern, she and John take their trip. Alicia faces her worst nightmare… The McKinneys’ vacation is cut short when they learn their babies have been kidnapped and John’s sister shot. Alicia and John’s situation puts them between a rock and a hard place when the main suspect is found dead before the ransom is paid. In order to save their children, the McKinneys race against the clock to solve a mystery more puzzling than those found in their own books. Can they do it before time runs out?

Check out the tour schedule for my Cobble Cove Mystery series on these blogs for spotlights, reviews, interviews, and guest posts:

May 5 – My Journey Back – SPOTLIGHT

May 5 - Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – REVIEW

May 6 – StoreyBook Reviews - GUEST POST

May 6 – Socrates' Book Reviews – REVIEW

May 7 – Lisa Ks Book Reviews – REVIEW, CHARACTER GUEST POST

May 8 – Dee-Scoveries – SPOTLIGHT

May 8 – Mochas, Mysteries and Meows – CHARACTER INTERVIEW

May 9 – Cozy Up With Kathy – SPOTLIGHT

May 10 – Books,Dreams,Life – SPOTLIGHT

May 11 – Valerie's Musings – REVIEW

May 12 – deal sharing aunt – INTERVIEW

May 13 – My Reading Journeys - REVIEW

#Giveaway #GuestBlogger #FREE #Deal

Guest Blogger: Leah Hamrick

K. A. Meng
Mar 8, 2017
2 min read

The final guest blogger for this week is Leak. Take over girl.

Hello, everyone! My name is Leah Hamrick, and I’m the author of Frost on my Pillow, numerous short stories of all genres...amongst other unpublished novels that I have yet to grace the world with. (He-he)

I live in Michigan with my husband, daughter, and plethora or turtles, fish, and a spoiled tree frog named Sticky.

I decided to start writing one day because I was bored… yes, I had nothing better to do than sit at the computer all day and tyw off of this nonsense that was spilling out of my little mind.

Well, I’m going to tell you about my novel, Frost on my Pillow, book one of the Fire Bringer series.

The story is about a girl named Lyla Hall, who lives an abusive life in her home, the Summer Solstice. Everyone in her little town is blessed with the ability to use Fire.

After she gets beat for the last time by her stupid step-dad, she makes a run for it, leaving her home, the only place she has ever known, behind.

She then finds herself in the real world, Toledo Ohio.

A young man named Rylan finds her, and takes her into his home for her safety.

When she starts school, she finds a book about her kind in her new school’s library, and she steals it. When she finally gets around to reading it, she discovers that her necklace holds the power to end the world if fallen into the wrong hands.

When she meets Ethan Killman, an Ice Bringer, things are going to change… forever.

Demons start harassing them, and they will stop at nothing to get the necklace and the power it holds.

When secrets from the ones she loves comes out, nothing will ever be the same again.

I know that is a bad description, but me trying to explain something? Yeah, right. You’d get a better explanation from a dog watching you throw away that cheese wrapper… I mean, I am so bad at descriptions that it’s a struggle for me to even get a blurb put together that even tells the reader half of what they will be reading…

Okay, I’ve taken up enough of your time… maybe you will join Lyla and Ethan in their adventures…?

Thank you♥

Click here to buy: http://getBook.at/FrostonmyPillow

....

Leah, I think you did a wonderful job describing your book. Until next time, Folks. -K.A.

#GuestBlogger

Guest Blogger: Geoff Nelder

K. A. Meng
Feb 19, 2017
5 min read

It's that time of the week again. I'm handing the reins of my blog over to another. Here you go Geoff Nelder.

Oops, there I go again, barging in on someone else’s blog, grasping for an unsuspecting new audience. No one is more demanding than Mrs N in more ways than two and this piece is inspired by one of her more painful questions.

Writers’ Delusions by Geoff Nelder

This is the question Mrs Nelder stabbed me with when she once peeped over my shoulder at my list of story rejections being three times longer than the acceptances.

“What on Earth made you think you could be a writer?”

Answer: I didn’t know I was okay at writing until a teacher made me stand in front of the class and stumble through an essay I’d scribbled. A silly tale about a red squirrel scrambling on the gnarled boughs of the village’s oldest oak tree, stealing an acorn from a tree spirit to bury under a pupil’s desk. Imagine my surprise when every kid sneaked a peep under their desk.

Yes, those words held power and I liked it. Through my teens I wrote jokes. Sold some to British comedians and my first was published in a magazine in 1969. At university I became a co-editor of the rag-mag, a dreadful collection of very funny, awful smutty and politically-incorrect gags. We’d gather in the bar and brainstorm until the beer ran out. That was nearly half a century ago and I still see those jokes. Uncredited, no royalties. It was for charities then, still is. During that time I studied geography, mathematics and literature. Struck dumb, me, when the lecturer read out loud William Langland’s Vision of a Fair Field full of Folk. This is a wondrous sample of that early medieval poem:

‘In a somer sesoun, whan softe was the sonne, I shope me into shroudes, as I a shep were, In abite as an heremite, unholy of werkes, Wente forth in the world wondres to here, And saw many selles and selcouthe thynges. Ac on a May mornyng on Malverne hulles Me biful for to slepe, for werynesse of walkyng;’

I learnt it by heart, while hiking on those actual Malvern Hills, a short bike ride from my house. I took my son on those hills a few years ago and the ‘sonne’ softly warmed our backs. I learnt the energy in words of sensual Show. Engaging the reader via all their five senses in every story. I read the great writers and they all do it. Even those science fiction and thriller books that the literati often overlook. Consider these two words from Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle: ‘She gave him a perfumed hug.’ You know which two words. Did you experience that hug? You were there, right?

After graduating, twice, I taught high school where writing lies takes over. Not really, but all teachers have to write masses of words. We talk about a target of 2000 words a day on our novels but teachers often achieve that when writing lesson notes, worksheets and above all, end-of-term reports. Most teachers hate that but writerly ones love it. It gives us the opportunity to be creative with an otherwise tedious activity. (assuming the school isn’t using computerized multi-guess reporting). One of my favourites: ‘The dawn of legibility in John’s writing revealed his utter incapacity to spell.’ Such chores honed my writing decades ago.

Not that I’ve stopped learning the craft. I’m with Pablo Casals – the famous cellist on why he continued to practise at 90: ‘Because I think I’m making progress.’

I remain fascinated enough by gnarled oak trees and squirrels to write them into my stories. This 2017 year sees publication of my ‘Girl in a Wandering Wood’ in The Horror Zine. I’d overheard the phrase wandering wood and thought what if a wood actually wandered? So, a botanist is trapped in a copse, animated by a spirit trying to stop her escaping. A squirrel helps her out, kind of. The same squirrel I wrote about in 1957.

A sample flash story. First published in Bobbing Around: (2004)Vol 3 No.6 A newsletter by psychiatrist Dr Bob Rich.

Nothing Upstairs

By Geoff Nelder

He should take advantage of the perspective from the top floor of a bus. Forrister’s car lingered in Foley’s Vehicular Care Centre for its annual medical but he had to put in a work appearance.

Green vinyl seats as opposed to his red leather but not bad. His nose expected sour milk odours—a foolish bias, so his eyebrows arched with surprise as fresh air slapped his face from the open top windows. Even so, those reasons for individual travel, cocooned in his Ford, came to him—personal space, sublime solitude listening to opera. He sought the least offensive fellow traveller. The beard looked normal enough: its owner gazing through a demisted circle on the window as London glided past.

An uncomfortable moment passed as Forrister obliged the window-side occupant to move a corner of his coat and shuffle up. In his car, Forrister would by now have tuned in to Classic FM talking back, unheard, to the presenter, so he turned to his companion.

“Cold, today.”

No response. Could be his new friend had defective hearing but more likely incredulous anyone had the temerity to strike up a conversation. Twenty minutes before disembarking—he had to give it another shot.

“Hey, there’s Putney Cinema. Don’t go in Screen Three, it’s squeezed in between One and Two—you only hear the other two films and at the same time!”

“Grooten!”

“Pardon?”

“For—is that all?” Beard conversed all right but in gibberish and to the window. Suddenly, Forrister’s head received a blow from behind as a robust woman thrust her elbow over the seat.

She treated Forrister to a cloud of gardenia fragrance.

“Grooten?” She barked. Beard turned, looked at her and nodded.

What? He hadn’t appreciated the rapidity of language development since he last used public transport. Contorted out of recognition. Forrister couldn’t participate. The woman had slumped back into her seat and the beard brushed again at the condensation. Forrister had to try again.

“Full today then,” Forrister said, sketching a wave at the one empty seat.

Nothing.

Then: “Jaffa. Man…”

“I have an orange. Would you like a piece?”

Before the Beard could reply, the elbow dented Forrister’s head again.

“Grooten?” she asked. He shook. She re-slumped.

Dejected, Forrister re-bagged the orange, stood and weaved his way to the winding stairs, three stops early. Before the descent he glanced back.

The woman took Forrister’s seat. Beard took an ear-piece out of his left ear.

And shared the cricket.

About the Author

Geoff Nelder is a professional liar, badass editor, and fiction competition judge. He was awarded Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society for his research into air pollution and microclimates and used his students as unpaid researchers to discover urban heat islands in Yorkshire towns and villages. He taught now-out-of-date Geography and IT to the ungrateful alive but escaped on his bike to write.

His publications include science fiction novels Exit, Pursued by Bee and the ARIA trilogy; and thrillers: Escaping Reality, and Hot Air. Many of his short stories have found homes in mags such as The Horror Zine, Perihelion, Ether Books, Encounters, Jimston Journal, Delivered, Screaming Dreams and many anthologies such as Monk Punk, Science Fiction Writers’ Sampler (with Gregory Benford and David Brin), Twisted Tails, and Zombified.