Book promo
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. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction.
*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving” led, and apply the usual cautions to buying. – SAH*
FROM PAM UPHOFF: Wheeler Dealer (Fall of the Alliance)
A Novella in the Fall of the Alliance Series, a sequel to Murder in the Rigel Brigade
Vadik Krupin barely survived the brutal shooting that killed his lover’s father.
As Regina and her sister find themselves at the mercy of the Estate manager, Vadik and his cousin realize that if they’re going to save–and marry–the sisters, they’re going to have to come up with a whole lot of money, quite quickly.
No Romeo and Juliet nonsense, here. This is going to put Cinderella to shame, as the Wheeler Dealer gets going!
FROM JAMES DAIN: The Body in the Alley: A Crime Thriller
The murder was swift and brutal…
When ex-Afghanistan vet Keith Gainey bounces a guy from a Philly nightclub, he thinks he has the situation under control–until violent mobster Shawn Toomey joins the fight and kicks the patron to death.
Now there’s a body in the alley, and someone’s going to prison.
When the cops arrest and charge Keith with murder, he has one last desperate chance to earn his freedom:
Confront the savage gangster who is trying to frame him, or end up in a cold jail cell for decades to come.
Enjoy the roller coaster ride of this short, fast-paced novella by best-selling thriller writer James Dain, “Best Novel” winner at the Los Angeles Neo-Noir Festival.
“Just wow! James Dain writes stories you can’t put down!” (Charles Anceney, author of The Boy in the Boat)
FROM DAVID WELCH: Colter’s Vengeance
How far does a man go to put war behind him? Colter Gaines went all the way to the wilds of the frontier, hoping to set up a peaceful life on a ranch with his wife and young daughter. For a few years, he had just that, even if his marriage was collapsing and his ranch teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Yet compared to what he had known in the army, eking out a living with his daughter was a godsend. But when he finds the body of a Blackfoot teen on his land, a chain of events is set off that ends in horrible tragedy.
BY WILLIAM MORRISON WITH INTRODUCTION BY D. JASON FLEMING: The Gears of Time (Annotated): The Pulp Science Fiction Bio Adventure
He was caught between those who moved too swiftly and those who moved too slowly, but time stood still when he met Medlana.
She was old enough to be his grandmother’s grandmother — but he loved her!
This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction giving genre and historical context to the novel.
BY ED LACY, WITH INTRODUCTION BY D. JASON FLEMING: Three On The Run (Annotated): A Crime Noir Omnibus.
iktaPOP Media brings you three tough as nails noir tales from master crime author Ed Lacy!
Dead End
Two big-city cops.
Bucky was young, strong and ambitious.
Doc was older, smart, knowing all the ropes.
They were partners — on special assignments and all the graft, including the favors of a red-hot blonde. And then came the big case, a kidnapping, and they wound up in a shabby, smelly hideout, with a million dollars in cash, and no place to spend it!
Blonde Bait
Mickey Whalen lived on his boat and bummed around the Caribbean, until he found a woman alone, on a sandbar, with a suitcase full of money. He fell for her, hard, even as he was trying to figure out who, or what, the hell she was running from!
Room To Swing
Black private eye Toussaint Moore knew a murder frame-up when he saw one, especially when it was hung neatly around his neck. Instead of dawdling around New York waiting for the NYPD to arrest him for a murder he didn’t commit, he followed the one lead he had: the victim’s hometown in Ohio. Only a stone’s throw north of Jim Crow Kentucky. If he can’t find who wanted that white man dead, and quick, all he’s going to have left is room to swing!
This iktaPOP Media edition includes introductions giving historical and genre context to the novels.
FROM KARL DAHLKE: The Unfolding Universe: Stories by Karl Dahlke.
Karl Dahlke, author of “A Gift From the Stars”, tells stories that join imagination with science to visit strange worlds and contemplate possible futures. Funny, weird, wise, and thoroughly entertaining!
FROM CHRISTOPHER WOERNER: 202207 Fulcrum
Polished and collected, this is what I’ve been putting out for the last month. Current events, observations, thought on the world falling apart, just hoping I could get this done before it finally happens. We need to turn this around now or it’ll get much worse.
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: Stir
According To Hoyt 
“George, are you trying to stir up trouble?”
George cracked open an eye and said “nope, trouble happens no matter what I do”.
Want to stir up trouble? Hold up a MAGA hat at a Antifa/BLM gathering and ask who dropped it?
“The thing you must understand about our foes, my friend, is that they all hate each other.”
Sorry, does that look odd to anyone else? It does to me, and I’m not sure what I did wrong.
That’s a blockquote. Usually, in my experience, it requires “blockquote” tagging. You must have managed it otherwise — somehow.
And it would be good to know what that somehow was. It might be more convenient. If reliable, that is.
We had a discussion about this back in April and Robin Munn figured out that WP was switching to Markdown syntax. He gave us a link on how to use it: https://www.markdownguide.org/basic-syntax
If you want to see the conversation itself, it started with me bitching about WP messing with my formatting: https://accordingtohoyt.com/2022/04/04/standardizing-people/#comment-838740
I never did find a way to insert a blank line after a blockquote, and I’m guessing no one else has either.
Nope. I tried the infinite-number-of-monkeys approach but ran out of monkeys. Best I can do is put a hyphen (-) on a line by itself.
Yeah, that’s what I’m planning to do when I run the LP.
Speaking of which, I’d better run a test first. Ignore this:
Text 1.
–
Text 2
Good enough. I suppose I can start using that regularly.
It was about 7:00 p.m. and Sheriff Olsen was still waiting for the Kent County Water Search and Rescue Team to return. The team soon radioed it was getting too dark and they’d have to resume the search for the fishermen’s bodies in the morning. The lead diver said to Olsen over the radio, “We searched where we could in the channel but the deepest part has too much sediment. Just getting close to the bottom stirs it up. Our underwater searchlights wouldn’t have helped either. In that muddy water, they’ll be about impossible to find.” (Excerpt from “The Master Code”)
It all started when the idiot bartender shook my martini instead of stirring it.
I kill ants by squishing them, or drowning them in Windex. I leave their dead bodies where they lie. It takes a few days to stop the invasion.
Ant stakes are a last resort. I stir up the goop so the scent is strong. The whole colony will inevitably die.
The student nurse worked her way down the questions for the patient, looking more and more worried as each one barely provoked a monosyllable answer. She stumbled a little, nervous of the watching eyes of her preceptor. “What… what is the quality of your pain?”
The patient stirred, lifting his head to meet her gaze. His eyes, she realized, were startlingly light blue, and reminded her of a not-so-domesticated sled dog. The smile that appeared seemed full of teeth, bright against his dark beard as his voice rumbled, “Honey, we’re not close enough friends for those kinds of negotiations.”
The riverwater swirled as if stirred. Ava wondered if there were a snag in it. The rushes and the wildflowers shifted and sighed with breezes.
“Too hot to take to a boat for a picnic,” pronounced Delia. Neither Ava nor Charlotte-Rose argued, especially when they could stay in the shade.
“The fat is heated in a pot or pan, melting it if necessary. Then the flour is added. The mixture is heated and stirred until the flour is incorporated, and then cooked until at least the point where a raw flour taste is no longer apparent and the desired colour has been reached.” Dating that girl from Louisiana lead to some interesting lessons. Some more than others.
First lesson: if you cook the mixture too long, you will roux it.
What? I’m hungry. Carp gumbo would hit the spot right now. 😉
The library was dark. If she hid in it, they might not check her bed to realize she was not sleeping, or see her to know she had not stayed in.
The curtain stirred as she opened the window. Its stiffness worried her a few times, but it was quiet.
“What movie should we watch tonight?”
“How about ‘Stir Crazy’?”
“You only watch for the intro tune, you know – and so do I.”
“That’s the only reason you watch as well?”
THWAP
“Well, he’s right. Freedom is a crime these days, at least in some places.”
She walked away, realized she was drifting toward the kitchen, where the cooks were all stirring some dishes, and said, “When will dinner be ready?”
“In an hour, Your Highness!” called the red-haired one. “It’s easy with so few.”
Rosaleen bit her lip in realization. “Don’t you want to leave?”
“Alright, I know you’re up to something. What is it.”
“I’m just going to read an author’s blog, maybe comment once in a while. Nothing unusual.”
“I know you. You’re gonna stir things up even if all your comments seem Perfectly Innocent.”
“Must you speak in capital letter? It’s unnerving.”
“Yes. I don’t how, Halton J. Carp, but you’ll manage to cause trouble.”
Her skirts swirled about her, and she saw the hall as she had not moments before. She looked about in panic. Augusta was not visible, nor any other lady, the lords looked indifferent, and her father only frowned as if she should certainly know where she should go next. She could not even guess where the arched doorways went.
“My lady?” said the knight, gravely. “May I show you to the garden?” He held out his arm.
Even if he were trying to get her out of the way, no one else offered her the least sign.
“Y-yes,” she said.
The snow swirled as if a witch were stirring the valley like a pot. He flew on, as low as he could, between the trees, and remembered his innocent childhood when he had not believed a witch could do that. Or at least that they did so safely far away.
I laid her down in her crib, gently, then eased my hand out from under her head a fraction of an inch at a time, pausing for a bit if she started to stir. I thought my baby girl was asleep, finally. Carefully avoiding the creaking boards, I tiptoed out.
And another bit of “Breaking Strain”
The cockpit of the lander was quiet, save the soft whir of the ventilation fans and the occasional beep or chirp from the electronics. Lucius decided it seemed quieter because it was just him and his pilot out here. He could’ve stirred the tanks by himself, but EVA rules required a second astronaut, even to cross the dozen meters between the moonbase airlock and that of the lander.
He looked up at Shelly Grimwald, who’d drawn the short straw and got to suit up to be that necessary second astronaut. “Wonder why the cosmonauts acted so odd when we came out here?”
“According to what I’ve heard, there’s evidence that the first Soviet moonbase blew up when a routine tank stir went wrong. Of course nobody’s ever going to know for sure because Star City decided it was too dangerous to send anyone to investigate and built this base to replace it.”
“And now that we have better equipment, the place has stood as a tomb for so long it’d look like desecration to take a look.”
(This is of course a timeline with no exact equivalent to Apollo XIII)
c4c
[sigh]
Wrong address.
Big. He was big. He was the definition of big.
“Do not wake him,” the Wise Ones had said. “Go around, not through.”
But they hadn’t. They had come anyway. And the mountain began to stir.