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.
*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 DALE R. COZORT: All Timelines Lead to Rome
A dead woman’s cell phone chip leads to a mystery spanning the U.S. rustbelt, a surviving Roman empire and a North America without Europeans.
FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: The Lion of God
John Wolff has been handed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Again.
He’s already saved the love of his life from an early death – thirty years after she died.
Now, a beautiful young woman, who is clearly his daughter, has appeared from the timeline branch where that same love of his life survived and married his counterpart.
She says they need his help fighting off invaders from the far future. Who, by the way, are looking for him. Why? Because they want the starship drive he and a friend invented, the precursor to their time machine. Problem is, in her timeline, it hasn’t been invented yet.
What man can resist a cry for help from his own daughter?
Particularly when the invaders think she’s a saint. Or possibly, a devil wearing saint’s clothing. And they’re looking for her, too.
Thus begins the Timelines Saga, and the story of the Lion of God.
FROM C. CHANCY: Oni the Lonely (NOW IN PAPERBACK, TOO)
A grieving mountain cove doctor. A pair of wayward oni. A curse borne on the black wings of crows.
The Rivertown Shopping Village has seen a lot of strange proprietors. An oni painter on the run from a bad breakup is a new one. Maple Leaf Studio opened with blazing color, but will a haunting end Kyosai Momoji’s dream before it begins?
At the south end of Rivertown, Rain McKee delivers soap and perfume with a hint of mountain blessings, picking up her life in the wake of her grandparents’ deaths. Deaths that may have been from a firstborn curse….
Kyosai’s a firstborn, and oni attract trouble like lightning strikes. If either of them want to survive, they’ll have to face haunts, monsters, and a curse so ancient no living mortal knows its name.
The Appalachians are old; the evils lurking there, older still….
(If you want ancient folklore, modern magic, and a love story that prioritizes friendship first, this is the slow burn for you!)
First in the Hidden Coves series!
FROM CLAYTON BARNETT: Princess’ Crusade
After nearly a generation the city-state of Knoxville is beginning to thrive following the collapse of the United States. However, its closest outlet to the sea, the port of Savannah, over the mountains and downriver, is occupied by the Chinese Army who impose crushing tariffs. The city fathers have only one person to turn to for help.Growing up trained by her military father and with a nervous system vastly modified by the Thinking Machines, Faustina Hartmann builds a private army of two brigades – called legions – to march on the Savannah garrison and liberate it, for her city and herself. But the Chinese have many technological advantages, not the least of which is their orbital bombardment battle station.Calling herself demi-human, Faustina’s ambition far outstrips the liberation of one port city. As the interior of America comes back to life it will need a strong guiding hand and she sees that hand as her own.
FROM D LAWDOG AND CEDAR SANDERSON: The Ratel Saga
All they wanted was to dig a pit trap and get a pet. The local African wildlife didn’t agree to either part of this plan…
A riotously funny activity book, field guide to (some)African fauna, and a story of growing up.
We strongly recommend that you do NOT try any of these things at home. However, you should definitely read where you can laugh out loud, as you should color outside the lines.
From the team that brought you Taskforce Chiweenie: The Poultry Liberation Front, The Ratel Saga is a (mostly) true story illustrated by a certified natural history illustrator who wants you to know this is moderately child friendly, even if the events depicted were a little hard on the adults involved .
Parental Supervision Advised
FROM SAM SCHALL: Destiny from Ashes (Honor & Duty Book 8)
Colonel Ashlyn Shaw is on a collision course with an enemy determined to destroy her and all she holds dear. Honor demands she not turn away from the upcoming battle. Duty requires her to do whatever is necessary to protect her command and her home system. The Corps and her family stand with her, ready and willing to do whatever it takes to finally bring this war to an end.
But when the enemy turns out to be closer than she thinks, how will Ashlyn react? Will this finally be what breaks her or will it see the might of the Fuerconese Marine Corps raining death and destruction down on all who would stand against Fuercon and her enemies?
Honor and duty. Corps and family. These are the hills upon which Ash and every Marine in her command will live and possibly die as they fight to protect Fuercon and her allies.
FROM LAURA MONTGOMERY: Relief Afar: A Martha’s Sons Short Story
Even on a lost colony world, secret enclaves have something to offer—but not when an insider sees a newcomer as the enemy.
Twenty-year-old Peter Dawe’s exile gets worse. Not only is he forbidden the lost colony’s city and his family’s freehold, but even his brother’s isolated farm no longer offers refuge. Of necessity, he heads north, away from humanity’s terraformed valley towards the hidden enclave where pioneers push back the forbidding flora and fauna of the planet’s native terrain. They call it Kentucky
Young volunteers from First Landing’s northern families work to terraform the plains beyond the mountains. They’ve known each other all their lives and spent the summer working together. Peter’s presence should be a welcome addition to the small group.
After what he did to protect his brother’s family, Peter has resolved not to fight again—at least not for a good long time. When another man seeks to test himself against Peter and Peter’s past violence, Peter faces a choice. Does he confront what he’s tried to leave behind, or does he show he understands the hard lessons life insists on teaching him?
Relief Afar offers another window into the lost colony world of Not What We Were Looking For. If you wonder what it’s like to build a new life on an unwelcoming planet, and if you want to see what lies in store next for this son of Martha, you’ll want to jump right into the newest tale.
Buy Relief Afar to transcend exile today!
FROM DAVE FREER: Cloud-Castles
Augustus Thistlewood was an idealist. The youngest scion of a vastly wealthy family, he’d come to help the poor, deprived people of the strange world of Sybill III – a gas-dwarf world with no habitable land. The human population, descendants of a crashed convict transport, lived on a tiny, crowded, alien antigravity plate they called ‘the Big Syd’, drifting through the clouds in the upper atmosphere. It was a few square miles of squalor, in a vast sea of sky, ruled by the degenerate relics of two alien empires.
The problem was that the people of the Big Syd wanted to help themselves, first – to his money, his liberty, and even his life.
Only two things stood between them and this: the first was his ‘assistant’ Briz, – a ragged urchin he’d picked up as a guide. She reckoned if anyone was going to steal from Augustus, it was going to be her, even if she had to keep him alive so that she could do it. And the second thing was Augustus himself. He didn’t know what ‘giving up’ meant. Actually, he didn’t know what most things meant. As a naïve, wide-eyed innocent blundering through the cess-pit of Sybill III, he was going to have to learn, mostly the hard way. Some of that learning was going to be out in the strange society that existed on the endless drifting clumps of airborne vegetation, and the Cloud-Castles of the aliens who hunted across them. Most of it was learning that philanthropy wasn’t quite what they’d taught him in college.
FROM ANNA FERREIRA: A Capital Whip: A Pride and Prejudice Sequel
An invalid for much of her life, Miss Anne de Bourgh has precisely one accomplishment: carriage driving. She is proud of her skill with reins and whip, and justifiably so.
But when another young lady moves into the neighborhood, and challenges Anne’s place as the most accomplished driver in Hunsford, Anne must prove to herself, to her beloved horses, and to her family that she is worthy of the name de Bourgh, and she does not shrink away from a challenge.
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: geese
According To Hoyt 
“Ah Mr. Flint, I know you didn’t expect to be here but we have a job for you.”
“What’s the job?”
“Well, some demons calling themselves the Wild Geese are trying to unionize Hell. The Main Office thinks that you’re just the man to help them out. Interested?”
Love it.
RIP, Mr. Flint.
Aw man, Eric Flint? That’s awful.
“Demonic geese?” I sighed, rolling the bridge of my nose between my fingertips. “Isn’t that…well, an oxymoron?”
“No, it’s a redundancy.”
What he said. Goose bites on toddlers (and slow adults) are a problem at one of the popular parks around here.
Rural Missouri, late November. In the harvested fields, hundreds of thousands of snow geese sit, competing for a bite to eat off the bare earth.
Instinct results in survival traits that benefit the species, but individually each goose would benefit by avoiding the flyway that the flocks follow every year.
“Geese over there,” observed Ava. Some were white, but some were white and brown, as splotched as cows.
“And a goose over there,” said Delia, omniously.
“Don’t be silly, Delia,” said Charlotte-Rose. “With all his flaws, Nigel is not a goose.”
“Better if he were,” said Delia, with a sigh.
Simon and Eric were just crossing the parking lot, “Hey”, said Eric. “I know those girls, Jasmine, and Cate, and Tina…I think they’re going to that tattoo parlor. Wait up. Let me go talk to them.” Simon shook his head. “No time. We’ve got work to do”. “Just a few minutes” pleaded Eric. Simon didn’t even break stride, he just glanced.”No point in it. They are geese”. “What?” Eric exclaimed.”Those are my friends!:” At this Simon stopped, and give Eric his full attention. Oh no. It was one of those looks, one that conveyed scorn, pity, and longsuffering all in one. “Pardon me” said Simon. “I forget. You don’t know geese like I do. All kinds, both domesticated and wild. Those” he indicated with a head tilt as resumed his course “are most definitely geese”.
She drew a deep breath. Outside, far off in the night sky, geese honked in their flight. She winced. She could hope yet that the noise did not reach them, or they did not realize that it meant this window was open.
She edged toward the door. Best to see what they were doing, first.
It was getting to be the middle of July. Long, long past time to be hearing geese fly north. But hear them she did and since she could only hear out of one ear she could never figure out which direction to look to find them. It was starting to drive her a little crazy hearing those geese every day but never seeing them at a time they shouldn’t be there at all. Finally she decided to quit scanning the sky when she heard them. It was too depressing to never catch sight of them.
That’s when she noticed that the stupid plastic sunflower yard spinner in the yard across the street sounded like migrating geese whenever the wind blew.
She smiled. The garden gnomes hadn’t had a mission yet this summer.
Until now.
Geese honked overhead, the skein a mere suggestion against the clouds. Winter was coming, and the tree’s apples had ripened, and often vanished.
“Dinner!” called a cook from the doorway, and she laid aside the sewing with relief. After, she would go for a walk and sew no more today.
They went off, arm in arm, chattering lightly.
A goose among the swans, thought Rose. And no one had the spine to say so openly. Or, more likely, they had a reason in mind. Everyone talked of how the nobles plotted, and used everyone as pawns.
She wished she knew which move she was meant for.
For a moment she stood there, a little girl, watching him with pale blue eyes, with delicate pink flowers woven in her pale hair, with butterflies floating about her head, their white wings touched with dark blue.
And he remembered what she had done to him, and that her appearance was only that.
“What a goose he is.” Titan’s voice boomed despite the muffling snow. “Does he think we will stop for a trifle of snow? With his past? With the threat he poses?”
“Don’t think he will stop for a trifle of snow, either,” said Karl. “Many heroes have given him reason enough to stop, greater than that.”
I was sad to hear about Mr. Flint. Very young for these days.
Oddly, I just found out that M. Ruth Myers, who I had an old book from that came out in the 1980’s, is actually still writing — about a female private eye… in Dayton, during WWII.
It is a brilliant idea, because so much was going on, and the local jurisdictions could not keep track of it. But I don’t know why she is so far under the Dayton book radar. Probably because her newer books are indie.
Give me book titles!
Yeah. A lot of my fans have no idea I’m still writing. Hence publicity person getting hired
Start with a link right under the title an pics
“my most recent books for sale”
Usually viewing in chrome or Firefox on a phone. Not immediately obvious you write books for sale. That seems sub-optimal.
I’m REALLY bad at putting the newest ones up. Those are two years out of date.
Source for us to gander is loot for the goose.
“We’re in trouble, guys. The powers that be are on to us. I’m surprised we haven’t been raided already.”
“Maybe they are hoping to scare more cockroaches out of the walls before the rats abandon this sinking ship.”
“In other words, all of our geese are cooked.”
“Instead of trying to come up with more animal metaphors, shouldn’t we be figuring out what to do?”
“Oh, that’s easy. We go out in a blaze of glory and take as many of those illegitimate sons of goats with us as we can. And hopefully the next generation can do better than we did.”
MOM! The geese are chasin’ Betsy!
Well, honey, geese are gonna do what geese are gonna do. Betsy shouldn’t poke’em with her stick.
MOM! They’re poking Betsy’s butt. Her diaper broke. She’s crying!
Well, honey, I guess she’s gonna learn her lesson today. When ya goose a goose, shit happens.
She rolled the dice they had given her. No dots at all on either die. How was that possible?
Her opponent rolled. Snake eyes. Almost as bad.
“I win,” he said. “Snake eyes beats zero.”
The crowd could see the cheating as plain as day, and watched to see how she would react to it.
“Not zero,” she said. “Two goose eggs.”
“Fine,” he agreed. “Goose eggs. I still win.” And he reached for the pot.
“Nope,” she said. “Geese kill snakes, so two goose eggs beat snake eyes.”
Everyone, including her opponent, laughed at that. And because she had made them laugh, no one interfered when she reached for the pot. Which consisted only of pine needles, not exactly scarce on the ground this time of year. It was just a friendly game.
She was in.
” . . . I saw the wild geese heading south on their October run . . .” Cory sang along with the album.
Flora turned away until the tears stopped prickling her eyes. Greg had hummed that song as he prepared for deployment, joking that it wasn’t about the birds, but the Irish mercenaries going to join the Continents endless wars.
She was grateful that Greg had come back at all, but some days were harder than others. For both of them. It was still a beautiful song, though, and she smiled at the better memories.
(For those wondering . . . ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QA2C0PMKys
The song begins at :32.
On the walking tour of Limerick there is a brief pause, before heading off to King John’s Castle (yes, THAT King John), to view a monument to the Wild Geese. Captain Garrity sighed at the memory. Their fate might be his, soon enough.
As Marshal Gruzinsky returned to his office in the Ministry of Defense building and saw the latest messages from the Soviet moonbase, he could feel the tension flowing out of his body. He was a soldier, not a politician, and by training an engineer. This was the kind of work he loved to do, the sort that had him tossing off his uniform jacket and rolling up his sleeves in eagerness to be about it.
He wondered if any of that gaggle of nincompoops in the Politburo realized just how close they’d come to being grabbed by the shirt front and slammed backward onto the big table in the center of the meetingroom. And these people were supposed to be an improvement over the collection of septugenarians and octogenarians that Semyonov had swept away in the first days of the new year, after it became clear Andropov and company could not cope with the madness that had overtaken Tbilisi and was spreading like a contagion.
“Ooh, look at the flock of geese.” Basil pointed at the fat birds scattered across the grassy park, busily grazing.
“Actually that’s a gaggle of geese.” Elaine recalled what her grandfather had told her many years ago. “If they were flying, they’d be called a skein of geese.”
“Why?” Yes, Basil was at that stage of childhood, where he demanded a reason for everything.
Elaine reached for her phone, figuring she could find etymological information somewhere on the Internet, only to realize she’d left it in the car. No, now was not the best time to walk back and retrieve it. “Spartan?”
Her husband smiled. “According to what Admiral Chaffee told me many years ago, hunters use different terms for geese on land and in air because one uses different techniques to shoot them. Also, some states do not permit shooting geese on land, only in flight.”