Behold, the rare and Elusive Monday book Promo post!
*Note these are books sent to us by readers/frequenters of this blog. Our bringing them to your attention does not imply that we’ve read them and/or endorse them, unless we specifically say so. As with all such purchases, we recommend you download a sample and make sure it’s to your taste. If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. I ALSO WISH TO REMIND OUR READERS THAT IF THEY WANT TO TIP THE BLOGGER WITHOUT SPENDING EXTRA MONEY, CLICKING TO AMAZON THROUGH ONE OF THE BOOK LINKS ON THE RIGHT, WILL GIVE US SOME AMOUNT OF MONEY FOR PURCHASES MADE IN THE NEXT 24HOURS, OR UNTIL YOU CLICK ANOTHER ASSOCIATE’S LINK. PLEASE CONSIDER CLICKING THROUGH ONE OF THOSE LINKS BEFORE SEARCHING FOR THAT SHED, BIG SCREEN TV, GAMING COMPUTER OR CONSERVATORY YOU WISH TO BUY. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*
FROM LIANE ZANE: The Harlequin & The Drangùe: Book One in the Elioud Legacy Series
Olivia Markham lives a complicated life. By day, she is a star CIA officer working a cover as a graduate student in Vienna. By night, she is a self-appointed, kick-ass superhero wearing a harlequin’s hood and wielding a wicked bō.
Life is about to get more complicated.
The sexual predator that Olivia tracks one July evening to Vienna’s Stadtpark calls himself Asmodeus, a demon’s name. Olivia doesn’t care what he calls himself. She’s just there to save an innocent young woman. What Olivia doesn’t know is that Asmodeus has followers he calls bogomili after an ancient sect of believers. She suddenly finds herself fighting to save her own life against these vicious, soulless creatures whose mission is to release souls from the bonds of a corrupt world.
Across the Stadtpark another hears Olivia’s battle with the bogomili. He is a drangùe, a powerful warrior with supernatural abilities who is duty bound to save innocents from Asmodeus. This drangùe will stop at nothing to defeat his age-old enemy—even if it means risking everything to bring Olivia into his world. A world in which the drangùe has his own cover identity. He has good reason to distrust this beautiful young woman who hides secrets that could get him killed or worse…. But the drangùe must keep Olivia close in order to stay one step ahead of Asmodeus. The only problem is that the closer he keeps her, the more the drangùe wants to keep Olivia in his life. And that is not part of his long-term battle plans.
FROM DAVID L. BURKHEAD: The Ships of Elemak (Knights of Aerioch Book 2)
The kingdom of Aerioch has fallen. Only Kreg and his newfound friends remain. And while the fearsome changeling armies are no more, the task of rebuilding Aerioch remains daunting. They must first escape the land of Chanakra and somehow cross the sea of Elemak.It is then, when their troubles will really begin.
FROM CEDAR SANDERSON: The Case of the Perambulating Hatrack.
She was trouble, and from the moment she sailed into his office in search of a PI, Soldagh Dennessey was caught in her wake.
In a city where the streets started mean and went worse, Soldagh had carved a relatively solitary existence out between the goblins in their dens of minty iniquity, and the gnomes who’d snitch on their own mothers for rent money. Rough as it was, he’d come from worse family, and had no intention of going back.
As the case grows tangled and terrifying, Soldagh is starting to suspect the past he’s been avoiding lies at the bleeding heart of the matter. And only the few friendships he’s made and an unexpected ally might be enough to save them now…
WITH STORIES BY SARAH A. HOYT AND CEDAR SANDERSON (AND BIGGER PEOPLE.): When Valor Must Hold.
Fifteen tremendous authors. Fourteen extraordinary stories. One outstanding anthology.
It is a time of high adventure! A time for noble men and women to say “No!” to the evils that will befall their families and friends if they don’t rise to the task at hand. If their valor doesn’t hold, civilization will fall.
Fifteen authors have spun fourteen tales of hateful wizards, treacherous seas, and scheming foes. Of times when ancient evils roamed the Earth, looking for souls to claim, and dark prophecies foretold what would happen if the Evil Ones were allowed to succeed. This anthology has all of this and more.
When Valor Must Hold focuses on heroes worthy of facing such enemies. A tiny brownie stands up to a massive ogre. A mother races to protect her children. A hunter chases raiders. A guardian serves his king. Heroes lead forces into battle against overwhelming odds. There’s even a goblin trying to save his people by stealing dwarven rum.
Inside are fourteen fantastic stories of enemies testing the valor of heroes great and small. If their valor should fail, they will lose far more than their lives.
Will their swords shatter shields? Will their magic shine forth? Or will they see their homes and families perish when they fail? Step inside and find out!
FROM SCOTT SLACK: By Three Moons’ Light.
Lieutenant Brown has a simple set of orders: Destroy a buried Karstian anti-orbital laser. If he does, the Strathar fleet he’s vanguard for can take the fight to the Karstian invaders who seized the planet from Strath.
Unfortunately, simple’s not the same as easy on the planet Jotunheim. First, his platoon has to make a long march undetected through the deep wilderness. If they survive, there’s still the hard fight against the military installation ahead. If he fails, the fleet and the invasion are at risk.
A story of The Ares March.
FROM SAM SCHALL: Risen from Ashes (Honor and Duty Book 3)
As a Marine, Ashlyn Shaw knows the day might come when she would not return from a mission. As an officer in the Fuerconese Marine Corps, she’s faced the difficult duty of sending the men and women under her command to their deaths. Both are nightmares she, and so many like her, live with. War is a cruel and costly endeavor, but one well worth the cost if it means keeping their homeworld free.
What Ash wasn’t prepared for was betrayal. Betrayal by members of her own government. Betrayal by certain members of the military. Betrayal by supposed allies. Betrayals that cost the lives of too many she cared for.
Unluckily for her enemies, that betrayal has cut too deeply to be allowed to go unpunished. Her enemies will soon learn how foolish they were to push her too far.
FROM T. L. KNIGHTON: With Triumph And Disaster
Alien life is theoretically possible, but what few signs of life are scattered through the universe are of primitive cultures that barely made it out of their own stone age, if that.
So when a big discovery threatens to shake the very foundations of xenoarcheology, it’s big news. The problem? Someone doesn’t want it discovered and they’re willing to kill to keep that from happening.
When an old friend asks Tommy Reilly and the crew of Sabercat to give them a hand, he can’t say no.
That’s when things get interesting.
FROM ALMA BOYKIN: Oddly Familiar.
Ah, October, when the ghosts, and spirits walk, and the Off Ramp of Doom falls quiet. Too quiet…
Lelia Chan and her Familiar, Tay, continue learning about magic and what mages do. When a customer drops a strange silver disk in Belle, Book, and Blacklight, it starts a chain of events that pull Lelia deeper into shadow magic. André Lestrange and Rodney return to help sort out the off-ramp. Someone else returns, someone who wants to open doors best left closed. Lelia and Company have their hands and paws full dealing with the forces of darkness and bad jokes.
Evil walks on All Hallows Eve. It’s up to Lelia and Tay to send it back where it belongs. Or else.
FROM BLAKE SMITH: The Hartington Inheritance.
Almira Hartington was heir to the largest fortune in the galaxy, amassed by her father during his time as a director of the Andromeda Company. But when Sir Josiah commits suicide, Almira discovers that she and her siblings are penniless. All three of them must learn to work if they wish to eat, and are quickly scattered to the far reaches of the universe. Almira stubbornly remains on-planet, determined to remain respectable despite the sneers of her former friends.
Sir Percy Wallingham pities the new Lady Hartington. But the lady’s family will take care of her, surely? It’s only after he encounters Almira in her new circumstances that he realizes the extent of her troubles and is determined to help her if he can. He doesn’t know that a scandal is brewing around Sir Josiah’s death and Almira’s exile from society. But it could cost him his life, and the lady he has come to love.
FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Deep Pink.
Like all Private Detectives, Seamus Lebanon [Leb] Magis has often been told to go to Hell. He just never thought he’d actually have to go.
But when an old client asks him to investigate why Death Metal bands are dressing in pink – with butterfly mustache clips – and singing about puppies and kittens in a bad imitation of K-pop bands, Leb knows there’s something foul in the realm of music.
When the something grows to include the woman he fell in love with in kindergarten and a missing six-year-old girl, Leb climbs into his battered Suburban and like a knight of old goes forth to do battles with the legions of Hell.
This is when things become insane…. Or perhaps in the interest of truth we should say more insane.
Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.
So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.
We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.
If you have questions, feel free to ask.
Your writing prompt this week is: WALK
According To Hoyt 
Thanks, Sarah!
Twice in one post my name is mentioned 😉 it’s been a good writing year.
“Did I see your dog walking without his feet touching the ground”?
“Sigh, first he’s not my pet and he tells me that he is Not-A-Dog. But yes, he can walk without touching the ground and he can run faster than a car without touching the group.”
Hatrack is awesome fun!
Leah finished her Terran observation homework, yawned, and walked into the connecting tube of the education pod. Exiting the tube, she entered the galley of the habitation pod where Mama was processing duckweed for the fish tanks.
“Have some garlic-seared rabbit thighs, there in the warming drawer. Papa finished the butchering this morning.”
“Mama, do you think I’ll ever visit Earth? It looks so beautiful, and I want to see a real waterfall, just once!” Leah piled a mound of food on a plate, the aroma of seared meat and aromatics having suddenly awakened her stomach.
Mama looked sideways at Leah, seeming to inspect her closely for a moment. “I don’t know when we’ll see Earth, Leah. You know how Earthers feel about children.”
*rubs head a bit*
So, are you open to a complete random guest blog topic? About, say, how to write blurbs? :,
Oh yes.
Do I send to the promo email?
sarah’s first two initials and last name at the hotmail account is the usual spot 🙂
Just remind her you sent it, so she can find where hotmail ate it now…
(And that’s not just a Sarah problem. I work with pilots worldwide, and the number of things hotmail eats and sends to spam… as one foreign fighter pilot put it with a laugh, “I never check main inbox! Only junk folder, as is where anything I want go!”)
HOWEVER it delivers all spam for bank accounts I don’t have to my email. (Signal salute.)
nah. my two initials last name, hotmail
Usually it was a thick fog. Those were best. They warned. You could choose to not go out in a fog. It wasn’t a fog this time. But here I was, obvious mid-jump at the streetcorner. The sign said “WALK” in bright letters… and “DON’T” in wavering gray. The traffic was, mostly, also only half-present. Crossing was unwise – the more real vehicles would have disastrous effect. Waiting was unwise, as the stopped more real would wonder and glare – as if I had pushed the button that I know doesn’t work in any Universe or timeline or whatsis – so I turned around, hoping for the probabilities to work things out by the time I got to the last, or was it next now, corner. If only there’d been a good fog.
“Seriously?!! Can you be any more cliche’?”
I looked at him, since my head could turn despite the bound wrists. He glared at me with his one unpatched from under his hat. “Aye, lassie. Cliched or no, you’ll still be walking the plank.”
The Harlequin, alone on the ship thought that the case must hold three kinds of ashes, results of the long past disaster, with which she was, oddly enough, familiar and such was her inheritance, as well as the deep pink gown. Other than that, it’s a walk in the park.
“WITH STORIES BY SARAH A. HOYT AND CEDAR SANDERSON (AND BIGGER PEOPLE.)”
Well. you’re both pretty big people to me.
Hey now! *puts hands on hips. Tries to smoosh them in a bit*
Not like THAT. 😛
Right. I’m sucking my breath in so hard.
She couldn’t find a dry path from the island to them, so Lizzes carefully picked her way across the marsh from one clump of weeds to another clump of reeds, trying to avoid twisting an ankle, or finding quicksand or a deep hole of water the hard way. She was mostly successful, waving off clouds of disturbed mosquitoes and enduring the stink of rotting vegetation and pond scum as she broke the surface. Disturbed frogs scampered out of the way, croaking, as she trudged a little more heavily with every sinking step, thick mud clumping and caking her boots as she made her way over. “What did you guys find?”
“Black persimmon and desert hackberry.” AJ held out a bucket for her to see the black globes about an inch in diameter, and the smaller bright orange berries. “This side hasn’t been grazed clean by the wildlife.”
She picked up one of each, and looked between him and Mikey. “I’ve never had either. Are they safe to eat raw?”
“The black persimmon has seeds that you don’t want to eat. The skin can be bitter, but the inside is full of sugar. High caloric, just spit out the seeds. The hackberries are safe to eat whole, seeds and all.” Mikey helped himself to some in hand, demonstrating, and put the rest in the bucket.
She did, a little hesitantly, spitting out the seeds into the marsh, and it wasn’t bad at all. Not as sweet as farmed fruit from the grocery store, but the persimmon skin wasn’t as mouth puckering as highbush cranberry, and the fruit was as sweet as salmonberry. The desert hackberry, too, was on order with the wilder berries she’d gathered while walking trapline, and she smiled. “At home, berry picking was always a challenge to see if more made it in the bucket or the person doing the picking.”
AJ grinned. “Better than many rat bars!” His mouth was berry-stained, and she laughed, and took her place with them, searching the branches for the ripe fruits.
When I was young I dreamed of walking the world, doing great deeds. However, it was not a dream that met with favor in the quiet little town where I grew up. My family and neighbors were ordinary people living happily within the constraints of their rank and station in life, and believed theirs the only proper way to live.
The harder they tried to mold me into their image, the harder I resisted. Punishments, privilege retractions, open ridicule only made me more determined, until the breaking strain was reached at last and I could endure no longer.
I never desired a hard breach, but there could be no other way. They would not let go otherwise, and I could not live with them holding me down.
“Just you try and walk away, Max Sundberg! Just try it!” Cari tried to sound defiant, but it wasn’t working.
She isn’t listening to me, Max thought. All I have to do is walk and I’ll be free of this.
But will I ever stop thinking about her?
Max turned.
The king and queen laughed.
“Julian,” said the king, “could you take our young guest to the garden, and show her the flowers?”
The prince bowed without smiling. He offered her his arm, and easily matched her pace as they walked through arched doorways, into the castle, and out again.
“Walk him! WALK him!!” thought the manager, silently furious. He thought it would be obvious even to Smith that this batter needed to be walked. He was the opposing team’s best batter. If Smith pitches to him, he’ll hit a homer and we’ll lose the game. We’re only two runs up, and with men on second and third even a single is going to tie it up. But if Smith walks him, the bases will be tied, and a force play at any base will end the ninth inning and we’ll win. And the next batter in their lineup is an easy out: he’s weak on the inside, just pitch to the inside corner and he’s sure to hit into an easy ground ball.
But three times the catcher signaled for a walk, and three times Smith shook his head. The manager was furious, the catcher was worried, but ultimately it was Smith’s call. Smith actually thought he could strike this guy out, and he was going to try it. Smith wasn’t going to walk the batter. He was actually going to pitch. To Casey!
Well met.
So we see the only person in MudVille who was happy…
Please mentally insert italics around the part of paragraph one that’s written in the present tense: that was supposed to be the manager’s thoughts, but now that I look at it, it needs more of a signal than the tense shift. Without the italics, it looks like I’m an amateur writer who doesn’t know not to mix tenses. And well, I really am an amateur writer, but I do know better than to mix tenses. So from “If Smith pitches to him” to the end of paragraph one should have been italicized to make the distinction more clear.
If she just kept walking, she could follow that bird. Who knew where it would lead? Into legend?
As if she should run away with just the clothes on her back. She should stay here and learn more and at least walk away with coin and another set of clothes.
When I was young, I often dreamed of hiking the length of the Appalachian Trail. I loved nature and roaming thru the woods, although I got to do very little of it. But like most dreams, it never came to pass. I grew up, and went away to graduate school, and then got married. After three years, he just walked away, so I moved to the Southwest.
Eventually I married again, and became a programmer. We moved to the Pacific Northwest and bought a house on 40 acres of forested land. It was close to heaven for me. I could clamber up the hill to the spring that supplied our water, or wander down along the creek that flowed under the little bridge. The half-mile hike to the mailbox at the end of our lane was a chance to spot a killdeer by the fence, or admire a red-tail hawk soaring overhead, or laugh at the dozens of violet-green swallows perched in clusters on the power line along the road.
I worked in the big city, and I loved taking a long lunch to stroll up and down the waterfront park which edged the river. It was soothing, and green, and not so crowded that I felt closed in. The changing seasons brought the glorious sights of redbud trees in bloom, followed by masses of flowering cherries. In autumn the park was bordered by the flaming colors of maple trees.
I also enjoyed the shorter walk from and to the parking garage a few blocks away, because I could admire the fruiting moss on top of the low brick wall, and collect various types of acorns and odd grasses and tiny flowers that grew along the way. The acorns and grass stems were displayed on top of the walls of my cubicle for others to admire, though few did.
Years passed, and various events occurred, and I moved back to the southwest desert. I found a part-time job which required standing hours on a cement floor or moving up and down the aisles to store or fetch various items for the kits I packed. The downside was that I was usually much too tired to walk even once around our block, except on weekends. Then I got to observe the marvelous cacti blossoms, and the various flowering trees. And of course, the Gambel’s quail were almost everywhere in the neighborhood, talking to themselves and each other and making me laugh as they ran across the road.
The job, such as it was, came to an end and was not missed. In the following years things changed, as things do. The walks became fewer and shorter and the quail became scarcer. More time passed and then the pandemic mandates arrived and even strolling leisurely around the grocery store became a less-than-desirable pastime.
Now I content myself with pacing my kitchen floor. Six steps, turn, six steps, turn again, twenty feet each way, around and around. I let my mind drift, perhaps planning a new piece of jewelry, or pondering the plot of the book I am currently reading. If it is daylight, I can look out the patio door as I turn, with luck spotting a dove on the wall, or perhaps a hummingbird.
Six steps, turn, six steps back, turn the other way. Sixty-six passes marks a quarter mile. But there is no goal, only the need to walk for a while. While I still want to. While I still can.
Inspired me to get off my arse and walk the neighborhood this morning, thanks.
Ah, if I can still reach even one person … Thank you, and I hope you saw many interesting things! 😉
Not much interesting most days before the sun comes up, though last year an owl flew about two feet in front of me and just about made me soil my drawers.
“Come,” said Frzzl(pop). “Let’s take a walk on the wild side.”
Ralph agreed and the two strolled along the Midway of the Leisure Quarter of Ganymede City. They passed bars, bagnios, bordellos, dens frank and furtive of every imaginable vice. Touts at the doors boasted of the delights within. Females of pleasure of a dozen species, clad in little or nothing and displaying surgically enhanced tentacles, antennae, and other appendages, paraded up and down advertising their wares. Pitchbeings offered Martian dreamjuice, Plutonian tippleweed, and Berries of Oblivion from Planet XIII (whose very existence was disputed).
“Well?” asked the bulbous vegetoid. “How do you like it?”
Ralph yawned. “You call this exciting? It feels like Tuesday night in Linden, New Jersey.”
They should throw in some grizzlies and jaguars, and maybe some poison ivy.
Not sure how to get this to the right person, so I hope she’ll see it here… on Sam Schall’s/ Amanda Green’s book over at Amazon, the series link goes to “Duty and Honor” by another author, rather than “Honor and Duty”. This goes for both Betrayal from Ashes (book 5) and Risen from Ashes (book 6). Books 1-4 go to the right series.
Thank you. I’ll message her.
Nice group of promos! Thanks!
For those of you who can’t get enough…Here is a good book review site:
thebooksuite.com.
Enjoy!
“You’ve located the fallen Jovian capsule?” said Spooner.
Lanzi nodded.
“Is it somewhere we can get to?”
“Sure,” said Lanzi. “It’ll be a walk in the park.”
“Excellent!”
“Specifically,” Lanzi continued, “in India’s Sundarbans National Park, home to the world’s largest population of wild Bengal tigers. Bring a tranq gun.”