Monthly Archives: September 2015
Book Tour – DOS ANGELES
DOS ANGELES
by Michael O’Hara
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE:
Mystery
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
Dos Angeles, the first in a franchise of mysteries featuring Paco Moran, puts the multicultural thirty-something ex-LAPD homicide detective turned reluctant private eye on the trail of a beautiful young Latina on the run with ten million dollars in cash. Half Anglo and half Mexican, Moran is a transitional character equally at home working in Beverly Hills or blue collar Boyle Heights, the tough East Los Angeles neighborhood where he was raised by a single mom. In his debut case Paco quickly learns he will be the fall guy if he doesn’t track down the young immigrant who allegedly stole a small fortune from a sleazy Hollywood producer secretly laundering money for a notorious drug cartel. Paco’s frantic search takes him on a roller-coaster ride through a shadowy place he calls Dos Angeles a city within the city and a virtual country unto itself.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt:
Dante Pirelli thought the timing could not have been better to get out of town and spend a week in Maui at the oceanfront condo he owned on Kaanapali Beach. For days all the local media could talk about was the potentially record-breaking heat about to hit Southern California. Temperatures in downtown Los Angeles were expected to soar above a hundred, and out on the western edge of the San Fernando Valley where Pirelli lived it would probably be ten to fifteen degrees hotter.
An added benefit was that Vyna, his beautiful young trophy wife, was excited about getting away, too. That meant there could be lots of sex on the holiday agenda. Vyna had been suffering with a bad case of the blues lately, but when she was in a good mood she could be a real tiger in bed.
Just as the stretch limousine arrived that would take him and his family to the airport, Pirelli gave a final briefing to Maria Rojas, the young woman he was leaving behind in charge of his sprawling, Tuscan-style estate.
“Remember, always keep ice in the dog’s bowl. And make sure you’re here for the gardeners and pool man. Any problems with anything you got the numbers to call.”
“Yes, sir,” Maria nodded with a nervous smile. Although confident, she could handle everything expected of her she was anxious about being left alone in such a big, fancy house. Still, she was going to be paid double her normal salary and Mr. Pirelli had said she could use any of the home’s resort-like amenities, including an amazing circular pool with a cascading waterfall and thirty-foot water slide.
Six days into her stay Maria’s only real challenge had been coping with the boredom. Outside of taking care of Mrs. Pirelli’s needy French Pug and dealing with the regularly scheduled service people, there had been very little to do. As predicted, the scorching weather the Spanish press was calling Los Días de Infierno had arrived with a vengeance. It was so hot during the day she rarely went outside, and she soon got tired of watching non-stop telenovelas. All the idle time made her realize how much she missed her regular routine at Mr. Pirelli’s film company. She liked how busy it always was and how the hours just seemed to fly by. Work—like prayer—kept her from worrying about her recent troubles.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR BIO:
Emmy nominee Michael O’Hara– who has written and produced some of the highest-rated television movies and miniseries in recent memory – is adding author to his resume with the August, 2015 the publication of his first novel, Dos Angeles.
The book, featuring a bilingual and bicultural private eye named Paco Moran, centers around Moran’s desperate search for a beautiful young Latina immigrant who stole ten million dollars from the mob. In a pre-publication review American Book Award winner Peter Quinn said: Paco Moran’s debut in Michael O’Hara’s Dos Angeles is fast-paced, finely crafted, and full of surprises. It’s noir fiction for the 21st century, a helluva ride from the first page to last. Here’s hoping O’Hara brings Paco back very soon. I can’t wait!
A former award-winning journalist and NBC Vice President of Media Relations, O’Hara made an auspicious debut as a writer/producer with “Those She Left Behind,” a critically acclaimed family drama that continues to be the highest-rated TV movie (25.1/38 share) on any network in over twenty years. It starred Gary Cole and Colleen Dewhurst (who won an Emmy Award for her performance). That success was followed by the widely praised NBC movie “She Said No” which won an American Women in Radio & Television Award for Best Television Dramatic Special.
O’Hara next wrote and executive produced “Switched at Birth,” the blockbuster NBC miniseries that earned an Emmy nomination as Best Dramatic Special and remains the highest rated (22 rating/33 share) miniseries on network television since its initial telecast over two decades ago. He was also the writer and executive producer of “Murder in the Heartland,” a celebrated ABC miniseries which garnered a Casting Society of America Award and two Emmy nominations. Right after that he created and executive produced the first of 22 “Moment of Truth” movies for NBC, establishing one of the most successful film franchises in TV history.
O’Hara also wrote “She Woke Up Pregnant,” the pilot for ABC’s ‘Crimes of Passion’ franchise. It scored an impressive 13.4 rating and 21 share, making it the highest-rated ABC movie of the year. He went on to write “One Hot Summer Night,” another ‘Crimes of Passion’ thriller that was ABC’s highest-rated Thursday night movie of the season. Other producing credits include two CBS projects: “Twilight Zone – Rod Serling’s Lost Classics” and “A Child’s Wish,” which was filmed in the Oval Office and featured a cameo appearance by then President Bill Clinton. In addition he wrote and executive produced NBC’s “In His Life: The John Lennon Story” and “1st to Die,” a two-part NBC miniseries based on the best-selling novel by James Patterson.
Overall O’Hara has produced four miniseries and 33 Movies of the Week. Besides his Emmy nomination, other honors include: a Christopher Award (“A Child’s Wish”); a Prism Award (“The Accident”); a Humanitas Award nomination (“Heart of a Child”); a National Easter Seal Society Award (“To Walk Again”); an International Health & Medical Film Award (“Heart of a Child”); and the Media Award from The National Council on Problem Gambling (“Playing to Win.”)
Michael-ohara.com
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14203330.Michael_O_Hara
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dos-Angeles/1143487899001779
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GIVEAWAY
a Rafflecopter giveaway
//widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.js
Book Tour – RENDERED INVISIBLE
Title: Rendered Invisible
Author: Frank E. Dobson, Jr.
Publisher: Plain View Press
Genre: Short Stories
Format: Kindle/Paperback
“Thirteen dead black men, and nobody knows it happened,” so says Johnny Smith, who sets out on a quest to make things right in the powerful novella that begins this collection – a masterpiece of collaged voices. Voice is urgent and significant–Dobson focuses throughout on the invisible and the unvoiced-he brings them to center stage, where they speak their pain and frustration. “Maybe we can revise history,” one of his characters says; Dobson’s book does just that.
Mary Grimm, novelist, professor, Case Western University
In entrancing prose that claims a place with writers as powerful as Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and John Edgar Wideman, Frank Dobson offers his own bold, subtle explorations of race and life in America. I sat down to skim a bit of his new book of stories, and ended up reading its central novella straight through. This narrative of the .22-Caliber killings in Buffalo – little known to most Americans-and the lives of blacks and whites caught up in those tense days makes for suspenseful, compelling reading.
Jeff Gundy, poet, professor, Bluffton University
ORDER INFORMATION
Rendered Invisible is available for order at Amazon
About The Author
Portrait session in Frank’s apartment in Gillette House, The Commons, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, 15 April 2010.
Rendered Invisible, my latest book, is a work of historical fiction, which is forthcoming (summer, 2010), by Plain View Press. This work, set in my hometown of Buffalo, NY and other locales, examines racial and social relationships, including a little-known but racially-motivated killing spree.
As a writer, my work centers on issues of spirituality, race, gender and class. I have published a novel, The Race Is Not Given(SterlingHouse, 1999) and several pieces of short fiction, all of which confront masculinity from the perspective of black workin g-class males, families and communities. “Black Messiahs Die” (The Vanderbilt Review, 2005) is a work of historical fiction which uses th e shooting of a black male by the police in Cincinnati (and other cities) as the backdrop for an examination of the wrongful death of a young black male athlete. “Homeless M.F.” (W arpland, 1995) examines class and gender through the mindset of a young, black, ex-con.
My one-act play, “Fridays Without Pay” was presented at the 2005 National Black Theatre Festival. It examines black male-female relationships from a historical context. And my full-length play, “Black Messiahs Fly” was presented at the 2007 National Black Theatre Festival. A revision of that play, “Young Messiahs Fly,” was presented at the Frank Silvera’s Writers Workshop in Harlem, NYC, in April of 2008 and also in Nashville, TN and Toledo, Ohio, in 2010.
My scholarly examinations of race, gender and class include a biographical essay, “Reflections of a Black Working Class Academic” which was published in Public Voices (Vol. V, No. 3) and other works. I have had numerous other scholarly works in print and/or presented at professional conferences. These include the following: the introduction to the Barnes & Noble edition of Folks from Dixie, by the famed poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and a recent article, “Beyond Black Men as Breeders: White Men and the Commodity of Blackness,” which appears in the Vanderbilt University journal, Ameriquests (Vol 6, no 1). Additionally, I have studied and written on various write rs including James Baldwin, A l Young, John McCluskey, John Edgar Wideman, a nd Carlene Hatcher Polite.
Educationally, I received my B.A. at the University of Buffalo (SUNY), the M.A. in English from UNLV and the Ph.D. from Bowling Green State University (Ohio). I received a Ford Foundation fellowship to study at Penn in 1992. And in 1996, I received the Hurston-Head Fiction Writer’s Award from Chicago State University, and in 1999, I received a CultureWorks Creative Writing Award. I am a native of Buffalo, NY and have lived across the USA. I am married to Dioncia, and we have three grown children.
For More Information
Visit Frank’s website.
Book Tour – A Fistful Of Clones
A Fistful of Clones
by Seaton Kay-Smith
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
Henry Madison is an apathetic young man with little to no ambition. When he loses his job and his girlfriend in one day, he is destitute and signs up for paid medical testing. The doctor creates clones of Henry and when these clones escape and start causing havoc in Henry’s life, he is hired in secret by the strange doctor and trained to hunt the clones down one by one and kill them. Henry soon finds out, however, that personality isn’t genetic but made of the experiences you have, and as time progresses, his clones become less carbon copied than he was lead to believe, growing their own identities and challenging Henry’s perception of what it means to be Henry Madison and of what it is right and what is wrong.
Book Excerpt:
As the sun rose over Duelham, a pair of brown leather boots stepped off the curb and onto the road. Cut from a long-dead cow, turned inside out, cleaned and stitched onto a foot, they walked down the grey-gold street and through the gates to Mingum’s Mill: a seemingly abandoned mill which towered over the rest of the town and imposed a certain enormity on the suburb. Previously home to rats, drunks, youths, and young drunk rats, Mingum’s Mill had recently opened its doors to a new venture. Though the youths, rats and the drunkards hadn’t been entirely evicted, “Medicine” was open for business and Henry, the owner of the boots, had the telegraph-pole advertisement to prove it.
Entering the abandoned mill’s front office, Henry passed the security guard fiddling with his phone and approached the receptionist, a young woman in a smart white blouse and navy-blue skirt. She looked up at Henry, who stared into her amber eyes with a steely look of determination.
Henry’s hand moved slowly but steadily to his breast pocket, his eyes never leaving the receptionist’s. Her heart beat faster. Henry could hear it. His hand disappeared into his jacket and promptly returned, not with a gun, but with a piece of paper: an advertisement, yellowed and weather-bleached.
Henry slammed it on the table in front of her. “I’d like to do it,” he said. Then remembering his manners, “Please.”
The receptionist looked across her desk to the paper she was presented with. She picked it up and studied it once more before returning her gaze to Henry. “Do you understand all the risks?”
“There’s understanding and there’s accepting,” Henry said with a gritty resolve, “and I see no reason to need both.”
The pair remained locked in their stranglehold gazes, neither willing to be the first to look away, to give in, to show weakness. The security guard watched on, his hand resting on his taser, ready for action but unsure of what action to take.
Finally, the increasingly tense silence was broken as the receptionist offered Henry a standard ballpoint pen. “Sign here.”
Henry cocked his head and smiled briefly. “The name’s Henry,” he said as he signed the document with that very name. Then, raising the pen to his mouth as if he was blowing smoke from a recently fired pistol, Henry pursed his lips and blew.
“What are you doing?” asked the receptionist, confused by his inappropriate and disease-spreading behaviour. That was her pen; she had to use that pen.
Henry’s gritty resolve dropped; his awkward self-awareness returned. It was as though he had suddenly sobered up at a party and realised he wasn’t actually having fun. An overwhelming sense of average took over his entire body and his mind went blank. Gone were his delusions of grandeur. He felt like a child in a world of adults. “I was just …” He stammered, unsure of what to say. “I was just blowing the pen.”
The receptionist leaned forwards in her chair. “Don’t.” She snatched the pen back from him.
Henry, shaken, feeling small, his voice almost a whisper, replied, “Sorry, I’ll take a—”
“Take a seat,” she said.
He was no cowboy, no western hero. He was just a man with a signature, a name, and little else. Henry took a seat and, fighting off a blush, picked up a magazine. It was a celebrity gossip magazine. Sometimes, it seemed, Henry couldn’t win anything.
AUTHOR BIO:
Seaton has written for The Roast on ABC2, Lost Pilots on FBi Radio, and is a regular performer of stand up comedy. Currently he is Head Writer at Paper Moose, a film and design collective based in Sydney.
You can get in touch with Seaton on Twitter. @seatonks
https://www.facebook.com/seatonkaysmith
GIVEAWAY
Seaton will be awarding an eCopy of A Fistful of Clones to 3 randomly drawn winners via rafflecopter during the tour, and choice of 5 digital books from the Impulse line to a randomly drawn host.
Release Day – Forget Me Not by Allison Whitmore
About the Book
Title: Forget Me Not
Author: Allison Whitmore
Genre: Historical Fiction
Theodora “Teddi” Donovan and Calvin Wynne have always hated each other. They didn’t have a choice after Teddi’s bootlegger father killed Calvin’s and left them both orphaned. The scandal has fueled gossip in quiet, quaint Brookhurst, New York, for over a decade. When a friendship develops between them as teenagers, they are ridiculed and shunned by the strict society that dictates life in their town. As they grow older, friendship turns into love, and Teddi and Calvin have to choose between their future and the scepter of their past. Spanning continents and decades, Forget Me Not is a coming-of-age story about truth, self-reliance, and the freeing power of love.
Author Bio
Allison Whitmore started her first novel, Forget Me Not, one icy morning in her dorm room in Southampton, NY. After many years of teaching high school English, she came back to the novel to rewrite it. Allison comes from a family who loves history and enjoyed immersing herself in the research that brought Teddi and Calvin’s world to life. She lives in her hometown, Los Angeles, California. You can find her on Twitter @alli_whitmore and her website: allisonwhitmore.com.
Links
Print: Amazon (Print)
Ebook: Amazon (Kindle)
Website: www.allisonwhitmore.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/alli_whitmore
Interview with … Mindy Mymudes author of Tillie’s Tale
Title: Tillie’s Tale
Genre: Middle Grade | Urban Fantasy
Publisher: MuseItUp Publishing
Release Date: March 24, 2015
Buy: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Blurb: Who is the mysterious ghosty haunting puppygirl Tillie? And why? George, the magical basset hound familiar is on the trail.
Author Bio:
I’ve worked in a hazardous waste lab, where under the sign for the Right To Know law, was added: if you can figure it out. I’ve been a metals tech, a bakery clerk, a professional gardener, and taught human anatomy and ran two university greenhouses. Along the way I picked up my Master’s Degree in Biology, specializing in the population genetics of an endangered plant. I’ve also been a top breeder, handler, and trainer of English springer spaniels under the prefix of Muddy Paws. We three in the equivalent of the National Club’s (ESSFTA) hall of fame. Every time I think I know dogs, another dog comes along and proves my beliefs are totally wrong. The truth is, the Muddy Paws Pack walk all over me.
Author Links –
Website http://mindymymudes.weebly.com
Blog: http://mindymymudes.weebly.com/blog
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Author-Mindy-Mymudes/486126501426333
Twitter: @GeorgeBasset
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6702514.Mindy_Mymudes
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Mindy-Mymudes/e/B00H9LFMR4
INTERVIEW
Welcome Mindy & George, tell us about you both.….
Mindy: I have a master’s degree in biology, where I specialized in population…
George: No one wants to know about you. I was born in a litter of seven pups. When I was ten weeks old, Auntie Heather recognized my greatness and tremendous magical potential. She brought me to my Girlpup and witch-in-training, Karly, to help teach her about magic and her craft.
What inspires you to get out of bed each day?
Mindy: Three English Springer Spaniel bouncing on my bladder. If they are fed and pottied, I don’t get any more sleep anyhow.
George: I try to avoid getting out of bed. If I don’t though, Tillie might eat my breakfast. Or Packmom might forget to feed me. Or something might fall from the table and I’d miss it. When breakfast is done and I’m pottied, I go back to sleep.
If you could hang out with one famous person for one day, who would it be and why?
Mindy: Charles Darwin. His studies of living things…
George: She means she wants to hang with me.
Mindy: The question states PERSON. Not fictional basset hound.
What’s the story behind your latest book?
Mindy: Ghosts are considered scary things, and I thought it might be an interesting way to tell a little bit about history and …
George: Considered? Ghosts are dangerous. That one was haunting my packmate, the little puppy girl, Tillie, and could’ve become a dangerous poultry ghosty without my help.
Tell us your writing process.
Mindy: Due to a disability, sitting for long periods is painful. The story percolates through my head and I see the beginning and the end. The middle comes as I’m at the computer, though sometimes scraps of paper are put into service to get down things I’ll forget.
George: I tell her my story in the order it happened. Not my fault she’s dense and doesn’t get it the first time.
When did you realize you wanted to be a writer?
George: When I knew my stories needed to be shared with the Peeps of the world. My mouth isn’t designed for mundane things like talking, so I found my secret-ary.
Mindy: I thought I was just journaling about my own crazy dogs, and the next thing I knew I was nose-to-nose with a crazy basset hound who told me he wasn’t a stupid spaniel and his story was more important. I never planned on becoming a writer, other than technical and for text books.
Tell us about your main character:
George: I’m a perfectly designed, brilliant basset hound familiar for a very loveable and naive Girlpup named Karly.
What are you working on next?
George: I’ve been dictating to my secret-tary the story of my love, Phoebe. There are also missing spoons and socks. It’s a romance. It’s a mystery. It’s part of my life story. Fascinating and fast moving. Like me.
Mindy: George get real. Once again, George has to find an answer. Tillie, the puppygirl his packsibling Joey was given in “George Knows” attracts a ghost who haunts her. George has to find a way to make the ghost disappear. During his hunt for the answer, Auntie Heather and Karly, his Girlpup, witch-in-training, learn about some forgotten American History.
Do you have any special/extraordinary talents?
George: I can fart in five languages and my drool is magical.
Mindy: (Speechless).
Who are your favorite authors?
Mindy: As a child I read Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Anne McCaffrey, Now I read a lot of Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance: Faith Hunter, Ilona Andrews, Jennifer Estep, Kim Harrison, Darynda Jones and a lot of others. So many dog training books I can’t even name them all.
George: Peeps waste their minds with books and ‘puters. They’ve lost all their in stinks. Familiars are born knowing everything that’s important.
What do you like to do with your free time?
George: I’m pretty busy, what with saving Karly, sleuthing out magical problems, eating, and sleeping, so I don’t have much free time.
Mindy: (Shakes head at George). I like gardening, reading, and dog training.
George: Shame you aren’t a better trainer.
Tell us about your plans for upcoming books.
George: Well, there is Phoebe’s Pause that my secret-ary is currently entering in the computer for me. Familiars don’t have need of computers, but you Peeps do. I hired a secret-ary from a coffee shop. She isn’t very good, I only hired her because she was working on an article for Dog Fancy. She understands dogspeak well enough.
Mindy: I also am working on a Paranormal Romance about a Werehuman who wants to go back to being a dog full time. His human girlfriend isn’t willing to lose him.
Any final thoughts?
George: I need to pee. Excuse me. C’mon, secret-ary, you can open the door for me.
Mindy: (Sigh)
Royal Melbourne Show Haul…
How better to spend a weekend than hitting the annual Royal Melbourne Show.
Filled with fun for kids of all ages, this yearly event runs for a good 10 days during the latter part of September at the Melbourne Showgrounds, near Flemington Racecourse.
To get in quick, we decided to hit the show as soon as it opened to try to avoid long lines. Needless to say, that idea was not the best idea I have had, as so did a few thousand other people have the same idea as I did 😦
Mini Review:
Cost of entry: For the 3 of us (2 adults and 1 child), the entry fee was $85. Plus parking was not in the best location as we had to park at Flemington Racecourse, which was $20 for the day, so one can say that it was $105 just to get inside. For this part of the mini review I will rate the entry a 2 out of 10. Although I can understand the cost to park all day, this part could have offered a discount when it came to buying the entry tickets. Say 10% off. That would have given more incentive I think.
Food: One word. Overpriced. 3 corn dogs, 1 schnitzel and 2 drinks came to $40. Hint: Best to bring your own food for the day. Rating for this part: 1 out of 10.
Rides: Always a favourite when we go is the Ferris Wheel. One of the better rides of the show, and absolute value packed. Great ride to see everything, plus awesome views for taking some great shots. Plus, it’s also cool to trick the kids into thinking that the Ferris Wheel was named after Ferris Bueller 🙂
-
- View of the big pie.. Of course, no pies are sold there 😦
-
- View from the Ferris Wheeel
Young Davo is really into Dinosaurs at the moment, so the day could not be complete than a visit to Jurassic Park and hitting the Dino rollercoaster…
Most of the rides to accept Eftpos, which is handy if you don’t want to carry a wad of cash around all day. There was only 1 ride that we saw which took cash only, which was a let down. Rides – there are plenty of to get your fill of thrills, for young and old alike. From the tame to the downright thrill seekers, there’s something for everyone. My rating for this is a 9 out of 10. Awesome fun 🙂
Animals: One cannot simply go to the show and not visit the animals. The animal section is always a personal favourite for me. It gives me the chance to check out what livestock I want of my own, and of course check out different breeds of chooks 🙂 Animal sections always gets a great rating. 9 out of 10.
Showbags: It goes without saying that kids love showbags. Forget everything else at the show, just head to the bags 🙂 Although 99% of the bags are really overpriced and hold little to no value, it is always a frustrating endeavour for parents to haul their kids through the Showbag pavilion. Being that this was Davo’s first experience in the showbags, we gave him a choice the night before. He could select 2 bags. Davo’s choice for the day was the Mega Train and the Mega cars showbags. Top choice 🙂 We got for ourselves the Western Bulldogs Footy Showbag. Check out the haul 🙂
Some other cool pics we got while we were there…
In all, hitting the show can be fun day out but by the end of the day it will leave you quite exhausted.
Book Tour – Blood Red by Wendy Corsi Staub
Title: Blood Red
Author: Wendy Corsi Staub
Release Date: September 29, 2015
Publisher: William Morrow
Genre: Thriller/Suspense
Format: Ebook/Paperback/Audible
From New York Times bestselling author Wendy Corsi Staub comes the first in a terrifying new series set in a small town with a sinister secret
The razor’s gleaming blade slices effortlessly through skin and tendon, and he relishes the final anguished moments of his prey. There’s only one thing he prizes more: their long, silken strands of red hair. But these women are merely stand-ins . . . a prelude to his ultimate victim.
Nestled in New York’s Hudson Valley, Mundy’s Landing is famous for its picturesque setting—and for a century-old string of gruesome unsolved murders. Rowan returned to her hometown years ago, fleeing a momentary mistake that could have destroyed her family. Life is good here. Peaceful. Until an anonymous gift brings Rowan’s fears to life again.
The town’s violent history was just the beginning. Soon everyone in Mundy’s Landing will know that the past cannot be forgotten or forgiven—not until every sin has been paid for, in blood.
New York Times bestseller Wendy Corsi Staub is the award-winning author of more than eighty novels in a career that has spanned more than two decades. Under her own name, Wendy achieved New York Times bestselling status with her single title psychological suspense novels. Those novels and the women’s fiction she writes under the pseudonym Wendy Markham have also frequently appeared on the USA Today, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookscan bestseller lists.
In Autumn 2015, Wendy will launch two new series. The first is the “Mundy’s Landing” adult suspense trilogy for HarperCollins, with the launch title, Blood Red, on sale September 29, to be followed in 2016 by Blue Moon and Bone White. The other is “Lily Dale,” a hardcover cozy mystery series set in the upstate New York spiritual community. Book One, Nine Lives, goes on sale October 26, with a second title to come in Summer 2016.
Another 2015 suspense novel, The Black Widow (HarperCollins, March), concludes her Social Media predator series that began with The Good Sister (October 2013) and continued with the USA Todaybestseller The Perfect Stranger (July 2014), and its prequel ebook novella, Cold Hearted (May 2014).
She has published two other suspense trilogies with HarperCollins in recent years. Nightwatcher (September 2012), won the Westchester Library Association Washington Irving Prize for Fiction. It was followed by the New York Times bestseller Sleepwalker (October 2012), which went on to become a finalist for the prestigious Simon and Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award presented at the Mystery Writers of America Edgars Symposium, and Shadowkiller (February 2013). New York Times bestseller Live to Tell (March 2010) received a starred review in Publishers Weekly and was also a finalist at the 2011 Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards for the Mary Higgins Clark Award. Its sequel, Scared to Death, (January 2011) was honored with the WLA Washington Irving Prize for Fiction, followed by the bestseller Hell to Pay (October 2011).
She previously published more than a dozen award-winning, bestselling adult suspense novels with Kensington Books and co-authored a Mystery series with the late former mayor of New York City, Ed Koch and a romance series with Fabio. She has ghostwritten novels for a number of other celebrities and bestselling authors.
As “Wendy Markham,” her most recent title, The Best Gift, is a sequel to the acclaimed 2006 Christmas Time Travel romance, If Only in My Dreams (both from Signet). Prior, she published nearly two dozen women’s fiction novels with Hachette, Warner, Avon, Grand Central Publishing, Red Dress Ink, and Berkley. She also has an extensive Young Adult/Middle Grade backlist that includes the acclaimed series “Lily Dale” (Bloomsbury/Walker). Early in her writing career, she published in various genres including suspense, horror, historical and category romance, television and movie tie-in, and biography.
In addition to the Mary Higgins Clark Award nominations, Wendy has won the 2008 RT Award for Career Achievement in Suspense and the 2007 RWA-NYC Golden Apple Award for Lifetime Achievement. A proud recipient of the RWA Rita award, she has also been honored five times with the Westchester Library Association’s Washington Irving Prize for Fiction and was recognized as one of WLA’s Millennial Authors in 2000. Her Wendy Markham novel Slightly Single was named one of Waldenbooks’ 100 Best Fiction titles of 2002. Her novels Slightly Suburban, The Last to Know, and Ask Me Again were nominated for RT Reviewers Choice awards, and five of her novels, Don’t Scream; The Last to Know; Mike, Mike and Me;Hello, It’s Me; and Bride Needs Groom, were awarded a month’s top pick review by the RT BOOK club magazine.
Her work has been translated into more than a dozen languages worldwide and her titles are regularly selected as features for Mystery Guild, Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, Large Print Book Club, and Rhapsody Book Club.
Wendy grew up in a large, close-knit family in rural southwestern New York State and decided she wanted to become an author while in third grade. She worked in two independent bookstores during college, then moved alone to New York City at twenty-one to pursue her dream of becoming a working writer. After stints as a book editor for a Manhattan publishing house and an account coordinator for a major advertising agency, she sold her first novel, the supernatural young adult thriller Summer Lightning in 1991.
Wendy now lives in the New York City suburbs with her husband of twenty-four years and their two children. A 1986 graduate of the State University of New York at Fredonia, she proudly delivered the keynote commencement address at her alma mater in May 2008, was a featured speaker at the 2011 Academic Convocation.
Having lost her mother and mother-in-law to breast cancer, she has been a vocal and active supporter of charitable causes such as Relay for Life, Support Connection, and the American Cancer Society. In September 2012, she was an Ovarian Cancer Awareness month national spokesperson for Avon’s Kiss and Teal campaign with the Sandy Rollman Ovarian Cancer Foundation. As an animal rights advocate, she currently fosters cats and kittens for various rescue organizations in the metro New York City area.
For More Information
Book Tour – Entropy
Entropy
by Robert Raker
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE: Crime Drama
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
When a series of child abductions and murders disrupt the life of an economically blighted community, the consequences have far-reaching implications. The brutal crimes take a different toll on a disparate group of individuals; the scuba diver who retrieves the children’s bodies; the disfigured cellist who thinks he knows who’s responsible; the undercover federal agent; and the mother of one of the victim’s. United in a situation not of their choosing, they are forced to take a deep, introspective look into their intersected, yet isolated lives.
Book Excerpt:
The Diver
The bloated, distended corpses of the people whose shortened lives I had retrieved from the water were clearly visible in the immature patterns of condensation that evaporated gradually on the mirror.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Robert Raker graduated with a degree in Journalism from the University of Pittsburgh. He currently resides in Philadelphia where he enjoys art, music, literature and live theater. He is currently working on his next novel.
Twitter: @RobertRaker1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Entropy-by-Robert-Raker/521775927864242?ref=hl
Website: www.robertrakerbooks.com
Please link to Publisher Twitter: @wattlepub
Publisher Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WattlePublishing?sk=app_190322544333196
Publisher website: www.wattlepublishing.com
Excerpt: http://robertrakerbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Entropy_preview.pdf
Buy Links:
Kindle Edition:
US http://www.amazon.com/Entropy-Robert-Raker-ebook/dp/B00GYL7ZM0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390807445&sr=8-1&keywords=Entropy+by+Robert+Raker
iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/entropy/id738473419
Kobo https://store.kobobooks.com/en-gb/books/entropy-2/6MUIiEVupkG5fweG1xqERg
Paperback Edition:
Wordery: https://wordery.com/entropy-robert-raker-9781908959195
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE
Robert will be awarding a $10 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
//widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.js
C.A. Milson 