BOOK BLITZ: The Star Dragon By Dante Doom

The Star Dragon
By Dante Doom
Genre: LitRPG

When the real world is threatened, it’s up to the players in a virtual one to save it.

Van Vanyushin doesn’t see the point in ever leaving the beautiful digital world of the game he loves—and for good reason. In the industrial wasteland he calls home, it is often the only way people can experience life’s simplest pleasures. But his allegiance to the game is tested when an ambitious CIA agent named Sang Ngo calls upon him to help as she goes undercover in the game to investigate Draco—the corporation responsible for creating the massively popular role-playing game Dragon Kings of the New World.

Sang is a gifted hacker who feels nothing but contempt for those who waste their lives in what she sees as a false reality…but when people start dying in the game, she must find out why. Van, a talented gamer, is her guide to navigate the world, level up their newbie characters fast and get into some of the most dangerous areas of the game. He dreams of becoming a pro gamer sponsored by Draco one day, but his partnership with Sang threatens to expose secrets from his past that could jeopardize those plans.

Now, they will have to put aside their differences to discover whatever—or whoever—is killing players, but the truth they find is darker than either of them imagined….

The Star Dragon – LitRPG Excerpt

Sivlander and his party rushed up over the snow-covered land to find two men in leopard skin battling against a massive Ogre. The creature was nearly three times Sivlander’s size, and it was hideous, fleshy and bulbous. The yellow eyes of the massive beast glared at Sivlander as it roared out, “Feast upon the flesh of the mountain crawlers!” The scouts were quickly clubbed by the Ogre Chief’s huge wooden club and then the beast turned to rush toward Sivlander. Now, Sivlander could see that the Ogre Chief was Level 78, armed with a Club of Severe Crushing, and had a Health of nearly 1,000 hit points!

“Archer! Shoot the beast in the arm!”

“I have a name,” the archer grumbled. “It’s Kalifer.”

“Shoot it, now!” Sivlander screamed as the massive creature lumbered toward him. He braced for impact, as he was a fighter and wasn’t exactly the type to dodge a blow. Immediately, the massive club crashed against his body, but he held himself firm. Pain shot through him, but he knew it was just an illusion. The mind of the fighter needed to be steeled against all pain. Holding fast after the blow, he raised his great sword and hacked away at the legs of the Ogre Chief. He heard the swiff swiff sounds as arrows flew over him, striking the beast in its right arm and causing it to stagger and reel backwards. It tried to lift its arm to slam the heavy club down atop Sivlander, but its injuries slowed it down enough for Sivlander’s blade to block the blow and push it backward. The beast was strong, but so was Sivlander.

“Come on, men, slay the beast! Together!” Sivlander shouted. The paladin had been busy healing the two injured scouts, but he leapt up and grabbed his righteous silver sword so that he could rush to flank the Ogre. The Ogre was clever enough of a creature to see this coming, though, and while it continued to strike away with its club with one hand, it reached out its other to grab the paladin. Sivlander saw this momentary distraction as the perfect opportunity, and with a deep breath, he leapt up with as much strength and speed as he could, and climbed up to set himself atop the beast’s right arm. The creature’s height was staggering, at nearly twelve feet tall, and Sivlander held on tightly in the hopes of avoiding falling.

“I’ve got it!” the paladin cried as he leapt aside and began to slash at the creature’s massive arms. The arrows kept peppering the air, striking into the Ogre’s flesh, but Crieagg’s body was so thick that many of them didn’t even draw blood.

“Our weapons aren’t working!” cried the hapless explorer as his twin axes failed to even cut through the flesh of the beast.

“We needed something magical for this!” Kalifer cried. “I told you it would fail!”

“Enough whining!” Sivlander yelled out as he held onto the side of the creature’s arm for dear life. The Ogre Chief didn’t seem keen to be climbed, and it was violently struggling to throw the warrior off. “Ogres are dumb enough—we just have to be smart! Archer, stop shooting it in the chest and aim for the joints! Knees, elbows, eyes! Anything vital! Paladin, keep it busy while I climb it!”

“Aye, sir!” cried the paladin as he ran in front of the massive creature, throwing a stone at the thing’s head. Crieagg cried out in a rage at this taunt, and began to focus primarily on clubbing the plate-clad man to death. Even as he went after the paladin, though, more arrows flew through the air, this time striking areas that were weak and unarmored.

Sivlander used the diversion as an opportunity to hoist himself up atop one of the creature’s shoulders, as the shoulder alone was wide enough for more than one man to be stationed atop of it. The beast was far too busy fighting the others to respond in time, as Sivlander buried his great sword into the neck of the Ogre Chief. It roared as blood began to spray from it, but even this blow didn’t seem to slow it down. Instead, it bucked wildly and threw Sivlander off of it, throwing him right into the ground, which he came down upon with a crashing noise.

“Are you dead?” Kalifer shouted as he continued to fire arrows and strafe the monster.

“No!” Sivlander responded as he leapt up. He instinctively went for his great sword, but remembered that it was currently lodged in the side of the horrific Ogre’s neck. He grabbed his back-up longsword from his side and drew it. In turn, the description popped up, reading:

• Longsword:
• Quality: B
• Damage: 144
• Durability: 87%

About the Author

Dante Doom didn’t touch a videogame or fantasy book until his 23rd year on Earth. He started working at an old-school arcade—hired primarily, he was told, because of his “badass ridiculous name”—and from then his education began.

They started him on the classics, a strict diet of Pac-Man, Galaga, Donkey Kong, Asteroids, Dig Dug, Street Fighter, and Rampage.

Freakish proficiency. Beginners luck, they said.

He was given dog-eared copies of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn, Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind and Anne McCaffrey’sDragon Riders of Pern.

Devoured in days.

Finally, he was invited up to the arcade owner’s private gaming room: Battletoads, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES), and Ghosts 'n Goblins followed.

Defeated, at last—maybe he wasn’t such a wunderkid, after all. But he didn’t give up. And that earned him a seat at the group’s D&D table. Many a happy day has passed since—he even beat TMNT’s Dam level and its health-draining pink seaweed.

Then a year ago, that same group introduced him to the new Fantasy-LitRPG genre—what Dante saw as the final stage in his education. Because, for him, it doesn’t get any better than LitRPG. The combination of an immersive fantasy world, gaming objectives and levelled progression makes for a fascinating storytelling experience.

Inspired, he took two weeks holiday from the arcade, sat down and wrote the Dragon Kings of the New World series. 

Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DanteDoomBooks/

Website: http://dantedoom.com
On Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075RF8L83/

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GUEST POST: Luna Rising By Selene Castrovilla

Luna Rising
By Selene Castrovilla
Genre: Women's Fiction

About the Book

Life begins at thirty-eight for Long Island mom and writer Luna Lampanelli, when she kicks her secretly gay husband to the curb. She's got her freedom, but what she wants is love. Luna knows she doesn't need a man to exist, but try telling that to her heart. Against the advice of Sunny, her snarky best friend, and Jiminy, the cautioning voice in Luna's head who just won't shut up, Luna sets course to find a mate. Luna speed and on-line dates her way into several short-lived, surreal relationships. There's Ari, the humorless Israeli who refuses to assimilate – to America, and to humanity. There's Alex, the young and handsome ex-crackhead who informs Luna he doesn't want to be monogamous—while they're in bed. There's Memphis, the wild-eyed sadomasochist. There's Red, angry and crippled, who becomes the catalyst for Luna to join Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. But before Luna can proceed to recovery, she meets the elusive but oh so appealing Trip. He's emotionally unavailable and has the Madonna-Whore Complex, but how can Luna (aka "whore") let him go when she enjoys his dry wit so much, and his body even more? Humorously haunting and packed with unspeakable truths, Luna Rising follows a woman's funny and heart-breaking struggle to relate with un-relatable men and an un-relatable world, and to figure out something even more un-relatable: herself.

Breaking Bad

Why do we like “bad boys?” Well, let me rephrase that. Perhaps not all women like bad boys. (Although millions certainly do like bad boy characters.) Why do I like bad boys?

I mean, they pretty much suck.They’re permanent Peter Pans, whooshing me off to Never, Never Land. The flight is fun and fanciful—but what have I got when you land? Stuck on an island, eventually forced to walk the plank.

But oh, the allure. The sex appeal. THE SEX. Why is is so much better with a bad boy? Is it because I never really know where I stand with him, that teenaged lust wafts from his chakras even though he’s well past being a teen? That there’s this rhythm strumming from his soul, like he’s playing an acoustic guitar only I can hear?

But can a bad boy be broken, paper-trained like a puppy. Neutered, perhaps? And could I find happiness with a broken-in bad boy? 

This is what I ponder as I sit typing on my deck, facing the water. It’s the same spot where I started writing LUNA RISING over ten years ago. And I admit it, Luna is me. To a point. I wrote about Luna as a way to try to figure out if I cold harness a man like Trip—her main love interest in this women’s fiction. There’s other men along the road from her divorce toward him. Crazy, funny, dangerous men. She learns boundaries the hard way. But Trip is the guy she wants—she’s got that aching,craving lust for him—but she also loves him. What a conundrum. I honestly didn’t know how it was going to work out between Luna and Trip as I was writing. I simply followed their lead. 

Does it work out? Well, that would spoil your fun of reading their story. But I will tell you that there is more than one path to a happy ending.

Still, Luna has not helped me to come to any conclusions of my own. Why oh why do I love those bad boys? Can I break free from bad? We shall see…

If you have any suggestions, please share. And thank’s for taking the time to read my guest post!

Thanks so much, Leigh, for having me!

EXCERPT FROM LUNA RISING

In the car Luna asked Trip, “You think we could find somewhere to park?”

“You wanna park? No one’s asked me to park since high school.”

She did want to park, so they headed to a lot by the bay next to the

recreation center. She worried about it being too public. He said not to.

He moved his seat back and she climbed on his lap, facing him. He

wore a small silver hoop that she found incredibly sexy.

“I like your earring,” she said.

“Thank you!” he said, sounding quite pleased. “I got it three years

ago. It was my niece’s idea. She said, ‘Unk, when you’ve had your heart

broken, an earring’s just the thing.’”

He showed Luna the woven bracelet knotted around his wrist. “This

is from her. She met the Dalai Lama, and asked him to bless it for me.”

Luna ran her fingers over the colorful threads, and his surrounding skin.

Maybe it was the power of suggestion, but she felt centered, like balance

was tingling into her tips.

“I never take it off,” Trip said.

He gave her that little, secretive smile again, lifting the corners of

his mouth ever so covertly. He had glistening brown eyes with beautiful,

flirty eyelashes. When he focused on her there was such magnetism

between them, it really was like they already knew each other. They kissed

again, and the energy level rose. He reached into her pants, touching the

small of her back, and she climaxed.

He moved across her body, touching different parts and making her

climax again and again. He asked her to take her pants off; she was nervous,

but did it.

There was no denying him.

He didn’t want anything in return. She asked, adding, “You know I’ll

do whatever you want.”

He said, “Just enjoy yourself.”

Sand sifted around them, moving from their clothes and bodies to

the car. Luna’s energy swirled and surged, relentless and euphoric to have

found a mate. The window was open but still their bodies overheated.

Trip said, “That’s it! This shirt’s coming off!” She helped him out of it,

tugging it over his head and across his outstretched arms. Then he held

her against him, against his chest. She nuzzled his neck. He smelled sweet

and tangy, like butterscotch pudding.

He said, “You smell wonderful.”

Trip was commanding, but gentle. He was masculine, not brutal.

Wrapped in Trip’s bare arms, Luna said, “You’re so tender.”

“You’re so soft,” he said.

A little bit later Trip said quietly, “I can’t tell if it’s me you want, or

just anyone.”

She’d known it at the email, and now it was confirmed. Squeezing

her fingers into his chest – it had just the right amount of hair and just

the right amount of muscle – she said, “You’re the man I’ve been waiting

for.”

About the Author

Selene Castrovilla debuts in women’s fiction with Luna Rising, but she’s no stranger to publishing. An award-winning teen and children's author, Selene believes that through all trends, humanity remains at the core of literature. Her novel Melt, Book One of the Rough Romance Trilogy, received six honors including the IndieReader Discovery Award Grand Prize for Fiction. Revolutionary Friends: General George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette, her third nonfiction picture book about the American Revolution, was the recipient of four awards including Booklist Top Ten Biography for Youth, International School Librarians’ Honor Book and Eureka! California Reading Association Honor Book. A companion book, Revolutionary Rogues: John André and Benedict Arnold, is hot off the presses. Selene holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from The New School and a B.A. in English from New York University. She lives on Long Island with her two sons and too many cats, where she sits on her deck in the summer, fall and spring (and at her picture window in the winter) and writes. She loves the color purple and coffee. Selene plays well with others, but with words even better. She is so grateful to do what she loves. National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson calls Selene “a writer worth watching.” Visit www.SeleneCastrovilla.com.

Links:

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SCastrovilla/

On Twitter: @SCastrovilla 

On Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Luna-Rising-Selene-Castrovilla/dp/0991626192 

On Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32963894-luna-rising 

On B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/luna-rising-selene-castrovilla/1125286165

GUEST POST: Curva Peligrosa By Lily Iona MacKenzie

Curva Peligrosa
By Lily Iona MacKenzie
Genre: Literary magical realism

When Curva Peligrosa arrives in Weed, Alberta, after a twenty-year trek on the Old North Trail from southern Mexico, she stops its residents in their tracks. With a parrot on each shoulder, a glittering gold tooth, and a wicked trigger finger, she is unlike anything they have ever seen before. Curva is ready to settle down, but are the inhabitants of Weed ready for her? Possessed of an insatiable appetite for life and love, Curva’s infectious energy galvanizes the townspeople, turning their staid world upside down with her exotic elixirs and unbridled ways. Toss in an unscrupulous americano developer and a one-eyed Blackfoot chief, stir them all together in the tumult of a tempestuous tornado, and the town of Weed will never be the same again. A lyrical account of one woman’s journey and the unexpected effects it has on the people around her, Curva Peligrosa pulses with the magic at the heart and soul of life.

WORDS AS ANIMALS

I recently read the book Words as Eggs by Jungian analyst Russell Lockhart. The idea for the work, and the chapter from which the title comes, originated in one of Lockhart’s dreams. A voice in his dream said “Do you not know that words are eggs, that words carry life, that words give birth?” (92). Lockhart later points out that this dream revelation isn’t exactly new in the larger scheme of things. In the beginning, it’s rumored that God spoke the world into existence: “the word is seed and gives birth to life and living things” (92). As eggs, words are constantly delivering new ideas and thoughts, filling our minds with possibilities and worlds we otherwise wouldn’t have access to.

A writer, I’m fascinated with anything to do with words and how they inform, form, and reform our surroundings—and us. They are magical and ordinary simultaneously, both grounding us in their multiple meanings as well as suggesting possibilities that seem limitless. That’s one reason why poetry and fiction in particular have such a profound grip on our imaginations and on us. In his exploration of his dream announcement, Lockhart does a compelling job of taking the reader into the soul and roots of language, demonstrating how mysterious and complex these 26 letters of the alphabet are that have an endless capacity to change shape.

So when I recently had an auditory dream that said “words are animals,” my antennae went up and the animal in me growled. What was the dream trying to convey by making this analogy?

Unlike humans, animals aren’t governed by consciousness. They simply exist, functioning instinctively, motivated by immediate needs: hunger, shelter, survival. Also unlike most humans, animals follow their impulses. Their innate drives are their engines. They just do whatever they need to do as they live each day.

How then are words similar to what I’ve just described? If animals, at least domesticated ones, allow us to corral them, to absorb some of their otherness, their wildness, then words must give in to our domination in similar ways. The very idea that we are abstracting something vital from the language we use in our attempt to create order out of the chaotic mess that unruly letters can make saddens me. We’re draining something intuitive and spontaneous from the method we use to communicate with others and with ourselves.

Is the dream suggesting that as we domestic words, as we drain their animal characteristics from them, we are civilizing ourselves too much, becoming more alienated from our animal origins and perhaps coming to resemble more the robotic gadgets we’re surrounded by? I don’t have any final answers, but I’m curious if others have thoughts about this subject.

About the Author

A Canadian by birth, a high school dropout, and a mother at 17, in my early years, I supported myself as a stock girl in the Hudson’s Bay Company, as a long-distance operator for the former Alberta Government Telephones, and as a secretary (Bechtel Corp sponsored me into the States). I also was a cocktail waitress at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, briefly broke into the male-dominated world of the docks as a longshoreman (I was the first woman to work on the SF docks and almost got my legs broken), founded and managed a homeless shelter in Marin County, co-created The Story Shoppe, a weekly radio program for children that aired on KTIM in Marin County, CA, and eventually earned two Master’s degrees (one in creative writing and one in the humanities). I have published reviews, interviews, short fiction, poetry, travel pieces, essays, and memoir in over 150 American and Canadian venues. My novel Fling! was published in 2015. Curva Peligrosa, another novel, will be published in September 2017. Freefall: A Divine Comedy will be released in 2018. My poetry collection All This was published in 2011. I have taught at the University of San Francisco for over 30 years, and I blog at http://lilyionamackenzie.wordpress.com.

Links:

On Twitter: @lilyionamac

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lily.iona.mackenzie/
On Amazon: http://amzn.to/2tQb5eS



EXCERPT: Bones Will Be Bones

They didn’t think much about it when the wind picked up without warning late one summer afternoon and a dark cloud hurtled towards them over the prairies. Alberta residents are used to nature’s unpredictability: snowstorms in summer; spring thaws during severe cold snaps; hail or thunderstorms appearing out of nowhere on a perfect summer day. At times, hot dry winds roar through like Satan’s breath, churning up the soil and sucking it into the air, turning the sky dark as ink. Months later, some people are still digging out from under the spewed dirt.

But this wasn’t just a windstorm. A tornado aimed directly at the town of Weed, it whipped itself into a frenzy. To the Weedites, it sounded like a freight train bearing down on them, giving off a high-pitched shriek the closer it got, like a stuck whistle. The noise drowned out everything else. Right before the tornado hit, a wall of silence descended, as if the cyclone and every living thing in the area had been struck dumb.

And then a completely intact purple outhouse dropped into the center of town, a crescent-shaped moon carved into its door. It landed right next to the Odd Fellows Hall and behind the schoolhouse. Most people thought the privy had been spared because its owner—Curva Peligrosa, a mystery since her arrival two years earlier—had been using it at the time.

Meanwhile, the tornado’s racket resumed, and Curva sat inside the outhouse, peering through a slit in the door at the village dismantling around her. The funnel sucked up whole buildings and expelled them, turning most of Weed upside down and inside out. Unhinged from houses, doors and roofs flew past, along with walls freed from their foundations. The loosening of so many buildings’ restraints released something inside Curva. Never had she been so aroused. It was more exhilarating than riding the horse she’d bartered for recently, a wild gelding. The horse excited her, especially when she imagined herself riding its huge organ. In the midst of the noise and clatter, just as the tornado reached its climax, Curva had hers.

A heavy rain followed, some of it seeping into Curva’s sanctuary and dampening the walls as well as her nightdress. So much rain pelted the town it created a flood that overran the main street. Protected from the worst of the storm, Curva drowsed and dreamt that she fell through the hole in the seat, landing on the ground with a soft thud next to a pile of bones, each about ten inches long, worn smooth from the elements. She grabbed one and—still aroused—used it, waking to the melting feeling of another orgasm and the sound of rain pelting the roof.

GUEST POST: The Crows of Beara By Julie Christine Johnson

The Crows of Beara
By Julie Christine Johnson
Genre: Fiction, Climate Fiction, Eco-Lit, Women's Fiction

Along the windswept coast of Ireland, a woman discovers the landscape of her own heart

When Annie Crowe travels from Seattle to a small Irish village to promote a new copper mine, her public relations career is hanging in the balance. Struggling to overcome her troubled past and a failing marriage, Annie is eager for a chance to rebuild her life.

Yet when she arrives on the remote Beara Peninsula, Annie learns that the mine would encroach on the nesting ground of an endangered bird, the Red-billed Chough, and many in the community are fiercely protective of this wild place. Among them is Daniel Savage, a local artist battling demons of his own, who has been recruited to help block the mine.

Despite their differences, Annie and Daniel find themselves drawn toward each other, and, inexplicably, they begin to hear the same voice--a strange, distant whisper of Gaelic, like sorrow blowing in the wind.

Guided by ancient mythology and challenged by modern problems, Annie must confront the half-truths she has been sent to spread and the lies she has been telling herself. Most of all, she must open her heart to the healing power of this rugged land and its people.

Beautifully crafted with environmental themes, a lyrical Irish setting, and a touch of magical realism, The Crows of Beara is a breathtaking novel of how the nature of place encompasses everything that we are.

____________________________

When I submitted those final bits and pieces of THE CROWS OF BEARA in February—the Author’s Note, book club questions, my updated bio—I hesitated over the dedication.

For Jon

I wondered then where he and I would be in September when the novel released. A flutter of doubt examined, and then pushed away. Things were getting better. He’d stopped drinking. I dared to hope.

When I submitted the final proofs in June, I had the opportunity to make that one small change. Delete the dedication. I knew then that September would find me alone. But I left it as it was. The present, the future, could not change the past.

When I wrote the first drafts of The Crows of Beara in 2014 and 2015, substance abuse had touched me, but only tangentially. Friends had shared their own struggles or that of loved ones, and much of Annie’s experiences were informed by those conversations.

But last year, as I worked with my publishing editors on revisions of Crows, I fell in love. And experienced first-hand the destructive nature of addiction.

My work has always dealt with difficult issues; themes of loss and grief—the death of a spouse in my first novel, In Another Life; child loss in the novel I now have on submission; war and divorce in several of my short stories. As a writer of women’s fiction, I tell the truth about our lives, but I write with a sense of wonder and hope, filtering harsh realities through the lens of fantasy, magical realism, and romance. My greatest motivation is to tell a compelling story, with characters who touch readers’ hearts. I have always pulled from my own experiences to create my fictional worlds, but never before have I lived one of my stories in real time, making revisions as I uncovered the truth about my characters—truths revealed in the person I had chosen to walk beside.

Addiction is a result of complex genetic, environmental and developmental factors. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to treatment. In the course of understanding how best to support my partner without enabling his behavior, I encountered research demonstrating how addictive behaviors are development disabilities and learning disorders, and that a focus on the causes, not the symptoms, of addiction is a more effective route to change. In The Crows of Beara, Annie and Daniel find solace and relief in attending AA meetings. This has been the default approach for decades, but the 12-step program has its limitations. As loved ones, we can advocate for humane, empathetic treatment that will allow people with addiction to find new ways to cope, replacing destructive addictions with healthy behaviors. Tough love, shame and punishment only serve to tear down what few reserves people with addiction have. Compassion, consistency, love, and support work in service of behavioral change.

A redemptive ending is easy to come by in fiction; much harder in real life. Our relationship ended, coinciding with the end of months of sobriety. I have to accept my own limitations to affect change in another’s life, but I do not regret my capacity to love. I will continue to pray for this beautiful soul, to hope for his healing. His experiences brought truth to my work. The dedication stands in tribute to all that he has lived and shared with me, to the man I believe he can become.

____________________________

About the Author

Julie's short stories and essays have appeared in several journals, including Emerge Literary Journal; Mud Season Review; Cirque: A Literary Journal of the North Pacific Rim; Cobalt; River Poets Journal, in the print anthologies Stories for Sendai; Up, Do: Flash Fiction by Women Writers; and Three Minus One: Stories of Love and Loss; and featured on the flash fiction podcast No Extra Words. She holds undergraduate degrees in French and Psychology and a Master’s in International Affairs. Julie leads writing workshops and seminars and offers story/developmental editing and writer coaching services.

Named a "standout debut" by the Library Journal, "Very highly recommended" by Historical Novels Review and declared "Delicate and haunting, romantic and mystical" by bestselling author Greer Macallister, Julie's debut novel In Another Life went into a second printing three days after its February 2, 2016 release.

A finalist for The Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature, judged by PEN/Faulkner author and Man Booker Award nominee Karen Joy Fowler, Julie's second novel The Crows of Beara was acquired by Ashland Creek Press and will take flight on September 15, 2017.

A hiker, yogi, and wine geek, Julie makes her home on the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington state.


Links:

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/juliechristinejohnson/
On Twitter: https://twitter.com/JulieChristineJ
Website: juliechristinejohnson.com

On Amazon: http://amzn.to/2o4RnJs
On Goodreads: http://bit.ly/2pD6lDz
On Powell’s: http://bit.ly/2grs41i
On B&N: http://bit.ly/2pDlbda 

____________________________

EXCERPT:

It took him longer than he anticipated to find a space near the gallery’s back loading door and to bring the last of his pieces inside, but when Daniel walked into the gallery, Annie was standing transfixed in front of the sculpture he’d titled Grian/Gealach—Sunrise/Sunset—her hand reaching for the delicate spheres of metal. She withdrew her hand before touching the piece, though her body leaned in still.

“Go on. It’s all right,” he said over her shoulder, removing a pair of stained and torn leather work gloves.

She seemed not to register him. Then she turned and nodded at the gloves he clutched in one hand. “Do you work here?”

“I’m delivering pieces for the installation.” He waved around the exhibit space. “We’ve set up just a few so far, but they give you an idea.”

“Is the artist a friend of yours?”


“Some days, yes. Some days I really can’t stand the sight of the bastard. But mostly we get along.” He winked and motioned her toward the sculpture. “Really, it’s meant for all the senses, not just visual. Go on.”

She drew the tip of her finger down one large round of metal. It blazed like firelight, catching the dipping sun, but the metal was cool. “It’s beautiful.”

“I like for people to handle these pieces—I want them to feel the texture and temperature of the materials.” Annie turned in surprise, but Daniel pretended not to notice. “Fingerprints leave marks and oil—that’s a good thing, at least for my work. People change my art as much as I hope it changes them.”

“I didn’t know you were an artist.”

“I do the guiding to keep a steady income coming in, but this is meant to be my day job.”

Giant parcels wrapped in quilted moving blankets leaned against the walls; only one other piece had been unwrapped, a protective cover draped over the corners. It was a tall, narrow triptych of patinated metal with a background of aquamarine. Gracing the foreground was a long hawthorn stem of leaves and berries that shimmered and waved in a silhouette of red and gold.

“This is copper,” she said in wonder. “You work with copper.”

“Copper mostly. Some bronze, chrome. I’m just starting in with glass—studying with an artist out of a cooperative here in Kenmare.”

“But, Daniel. Copper.”

“Recycled copper. I use discarded materials, from building sites mostly. Ironic, right? I don’t want the mine in my backyard, but I’m willing to exploit it nonetheless—is that what you’re thinking? I’m not so naive as to think we shouldn’t have mining.”

He pulled the cover away from the sculpture’s sharp edges and let it drop to the floor. The hawthorn was in a cow pasture where he often sat, watching for the Red-billed Chough that foraged for seeds in the manure. “But in my own way, maybe I can show that the earth’s resources aren’t ours for the taking wherever, whenever we want. Art is a way to connect people with their environment without polarizing, without politicizing. It can be used to that purpose, but it belongs to everyone. I want my art to show nature as a cultural artifact. I made a very deliberate decision to use what’s already been taken from the earth—what had been stripped from Beara’s earth more than a century ago. Maybe that is my political statement.”

At that moment, hearing the words in his own voice, speaking his heart out loud, Daniel made his decision. But it was something he needed to sit with, to form more fully on his own. And he couldn’t forget, no matter how enchanting this woman was, who she was, why their paths had crossed.

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: Love, Death and Other Lies By Jerome Sparks

Love, Death and Other Lies

By Jerome Sparks

Genre: Horror, Supernatural, Thriller, Occult

During an ill-fated girls’ night out, still reeling from the loss of her husband, Liv Bestte meets a mysterious, old woman who promises to return her husband to her – for a price. It isn’t until the reanimated corpse of her late husband has begun terrorizing the hills and hollows around Julian, West Virginia, tearing flesh from bone, that Liv learns the price is her soul.
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Now Liv is racing against time to find a way to satisfy this debt without sacrificing herself. And she soon learns that the only way she might escape her grisly fate is by offering up her daughter, Tegan, in her place.

But is it already too late for Liv? Is Liv’s fate sealed by family history? When Liv is about to make an ill-fated decision, it is Liv’s younger sister, Abby, who stands in her way, despite the fact that Abby was the first victim of the resurrected thing that was once Conner Bestte.

About the Author

Jerome Sparks is a native of West Virginia.  He majored in the highly unprofitable and nonspecific field of Creative Productions while attending the University of Charleston in Charleston, West Virginia.  Hoping to become a college professor, Sparks went on to earn a Master of Arts degree in Humanities, with a concentration in literary theory from the West Virginia Graduate College located in Institute, West Virginia.  But, after an unsuccessful attempt to teach English at the college level (for which he offers his most sincere apologies to his former students), Sparks took the easy out and pursued a J.D. from Tulane Law School in New Orleans, Louisiana.  Sparks called New Orleans home for several years, haunting the bars and bistros of the French Quarter, before finally following a girl back to West Virginia where he is currently practicing law.  (Yes, he married the girl.)  Sparks and his family now live happily in the West Virginia hills.

Links:

On Twitter: @Jerome_Sparks17

Author’s Blog: http://jeromesparksauthorblog.blogspot.com/

On Amazon: http://amzn.to/2trDJT7

On Goodreads: http://bit.ly/2sTJeIG