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. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion.– SAH
FROM PAM UPHOFF: Origin Stories (Chronicles of the Fall Book 11)
Six stories in the Troystvennyy Soyuz on the run up to and during the Fall of the Alliance.
Young people with problems with the brutal society, and all too often their own families. Young men and women reaching for a better future, as everything changes around them.
FROM ROBERT HANLON AND SCOTT MCCREA: Timber: U.S. Marshal: Strike Flint: A Western Adventure (A U.S. Marshal Ezra Flint Western Book 2)
Timber: U.S. Marshal and U.S. Marshal Ezra Flint are working together in this exciting new adventure from Robert Hanlon and Scott McCrea!
U.S. Marshal Ezra Flint is called in by William Burroughs of the Burroughs Bank, located in Misery, Kansas. A fellow banker in Texas has been embezzled by an employee; the bank needs an infusion of gold to remain solvent and the entire matter hushed up. For that reason, no military escort can be involved. Flint is hired to safeguard the shipment of gold to Texas.
Flint wires Jake Timber, legendary lawman, and asks if he would join him when he reaches Texas. He is delighted when Timber agrees to meet him on the trail.
Leaving Misery, Flint engages a retired gunman, Seth Thyne, to help out, and with a mission to complete, no holds will be barred to bring criminality in Texas to justice.
FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: A Hymn for Those Who Fall Forever
Endings always hurt, but Vitali Grigorenko never expected a nightmare in orbit.
Assigned to command the last flight of the orbiter Baikal, Vitali had started the mission in a nostalgic mood. That went out the airlock when he saw the body tumbling through space just beyond the flight deck windows. A body in NASA blue, not Russian tan.
Now he’s trying to get to the bottom of a murder in space, and his own country’s space program as much a hindrance as a help. It’s becoming clear that politics is involved, on both sides of what used to be the Iron Curtain, and he’s going to need to go clear to the top.
A short story of the Grissom timeline.
FROM MARY CATELLI: The Lion and the Library
The library holds many marvels. Lena and her betrothed Erion had found things that helped the beleaguered Celestians of the city.
But when the king’s caprice decides to sacrifice Erion to protect himself, Lena can only hope a legend can help her. A legend of just kings. And lions.
FROM BECKY R. JONES: Night Mage (Academic Magic Book 2)
After fighting a demon in the middle of Philadelphia, Zoe O’Brien wants nothing more than to return to her normal, if stress-filled, life as an assistant professor of history at Summerfield College. But she’s an Elemental mage and that means when there’s potential magical trouble on campus, the squirrels come to her. Who or what is the dark presence moving around campus? Why is it here and what does it want? Zoe struggles to come to terms with her mage powers and the leadership role her colleagues have given her. Complicating everything are all the papers that have to be graded, classes that need to be prepped, and most importantly, cats that require attention. Oh, yeah. She might actually have a boyfriend as well.
FROM LAURA MONTGOMERY: Transport and Deliver: A Martha’s Sons Short Story
When escape on a boat jeopardizes all a family has worked for, can an errant son risk his life to save their future?
The Luwenthals—second generation settlers on the lost planet Not What We Were Looking For—confront the destruction of their past life, and are forced to flee. As the boat containing the family’s prized linotype crosses a river lit by the flames of the printshop they had to abandon, fifteen-year-old Tobias Luwenthal must face his father’s ire over what he sees as his son’s betrayal. Disaster strikes, but will Tobias seize the chance to redeem himself at the cost of his own life? Will his father learn from his son as Tobias has learned from him?
A short story that picks up right at the end of The Gear Engages.
If you’ve enjoyed the Martha’s Sons series, start reading now for a glimpse into what happens next in this dystopian lost world!
FROM HOLLY CHISM: Universal Donor (Modern Gods)
Same liver, different vulture…
When you know you can regenerate any organ, fast…why not donate your kidneys?
Prometheus has been a teacher all of his life, nearly. Sometimes, like with teaching Man to harness fire, it got him in trouble. Sometimes, he’s able to make an even bigger difference for his students. Especially when they need a kidney as much as they need knowledge.
FROM MACKEY CHANDLER: Neither Here nor There
This is a stand alone story unrelated to any of my other books or shorts.
So many scientific discoveries have been serendipity rather than a goal to which someone worked as a logical progression. Instead, it was a spill or a misplaced item.
An ingredient measured out in error or from the wrong bottle. Often, a mistake over which someone was bright enough or curious enough to say: “Oops, but that’s interesting, isn’t it?” Uranium ore left next to photo plates, adhesive that wasn’t as permanent as hoped for, but still usefully tacky, or foreign growths in a Petri dish acting strangely…
A major revelation could be a blessing indeed, or if it was big enough to be a life changing development, one might have a tiger by the tail. Wouldn’t that be interesting?
FROM KAREN MYERS: The Ways of Winter – A Virginian in Elfland (The Hounds of Annwn Book 2)
TRAPPED BEHIND ENEMY LINES, CAN HE FIND THE STRENGTH TO DEFEND ALL THAT HE VALUES MOST, OR EVEN JUST TO SURVIVE?
It’s the dead of winter and George Talbot Traherne, the new human huntsman for the Wild Hunt, is in trouble. The damage in Gwyn ap Nudd’s domain reveals the deadly powers of a dangerous foe who has mastered an unstoppable weapon and threatens the fae dominions in both the new and the old worlds.
Secure in his unbreachable stronghold, the enemy holds hostages and has no compunction about using them in deadly experiments with newly discovered way-technology. Only George has a chance to reach him in time to prevent the loss of thousands of lives, even if it costs him everything.
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: COACH
According To Hoyt 
No sooner than she moved that Snowfall darted onward, with no more difficulty than if the overgrown forest floor were a road broad enough for a coach. White flashed among the ferns’ green. Enough to follow. Sylvie gave the kitten a narrowed gaze. As if it were intentionally leading her
Diggory stood before him. “May I go to the caves, sir?”
Marcus raised an eyebrow. “It would not seem so dangerous that you need permission, at your age.”
He blushed a little. “I wanted to try to use my powers there. I have no one to guide me, I will have to manage on my own.”
Marcus felt chilled. He remembered the days when he fumbled with his own dominion, how desperately he needed to fathom it.
“I thought it would be unfair to put all the duty of defending us on you. Not if we could help. But first — ” He spread his hands. “First I need to know what my dominion is.”
The boy looked both desperate and eager. Marcus stood for a minute longer, not quite knowing what to think.
Then it occurred to him that he might not be here during an attack. “Of course.”
“Son, I’m going to have to take you off the aerial football team”.
“But Coach…”
“No buts, you’ve destroyed too many footballs. The footballs aren’t as tough as you. You need more work on controlling your strength.”
The staff at the opera who take your garments and bundles are trained and supervised by Coach Eck, played by Telly Savalas in the tv special.
The astral traction device being ready for test, the carpapult team calls the shade of Telly Savalas to pull the lanyard. Twang!!!!
Nasa postpones spacewalk because of suit malfunction. I didn’t know Boeing made space suits as well?
362 shots fired, 9 wounded.
“Send in the A team, these Gangsters just suck” Head Gangsta said.
“That was the A team” the Coach sighed.
And these are the ones the Demoncrats are counting on to get us in the Camps?
Bwahahahahahaha
362 shots fired, 9 wounded.
“Send in the A Team” Head Gangsta ordered.
“That was the A Team” their FBI Coach/Handler confessed.
And these are the ones the DEMONcrats will use to get our Guns and put us into camps?
Bwahahahahahaha
”It’s a coupe.”
”No, has four doors. It’s a sedan.”
“It’s not either. Besides, there are four door coupes now.”
“There are not, you heretic. Look at those lines. It’s clearly got sedan lines.”
I was starting to get a headache from the two of them arguing. “It’s a spaceship! A frelling flying saucer! How can it be either?” I said rather vehemently. Okay, very vehemently.
They both looked at me with the look only the die hard car guys can use on the pitiably uninformed, like the look used when someone asked how many cylinders a Tesla had. It’s actually copyrighted – car guys, and car girls, are the only ones allowed to look at anyone like that.
”Besides,” I said reasonably, “It’s clearly a coach style.”
The look vanished, but the argument was on now. “A Coach!? Are you kidding me?”
”No he’s right, look at the style lines along the back…”
Lisa Fox had known to expect culture shock when she went to Russia as an exchange student. But the biggest surprise for her was discovering that schools didn’t have athletic teams. Instead, there were sports clubs sponsored by the local House of Culture.
It was hard to explain about school sports to her new classmates. Sure, they’d heard the Beach Boys’ classic “Be True to Your School,” and most of them had enough English to understand the words, but they didn’t really get it. How to explained without casting the US in an unflattering light, the way she would if she told them the best way to get a school funding referendum through was threaten to cut boys’ basketball and football.
Even showing them her letter jacket and telling about how she’d lettered in marching band and in girls’ track didn’t make the connection. Then she knew — nobody ever called the head football coach “Mr. Hernandez.” Even if you weren’t a football player, he was always “Coach Hernandez.”
About one of my favorite authors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGXgCC3sCpg
Off topic, but potentially something that’s been touched on here before.
Santa Paula is a city in Ventura County, which is part of the Greater LA Metropolitan Area. Residents in the city are being advised not to use tap water except for bathing after evidence of an intruder was discovered at a city reservoir. Test results will be available in a few days. But in the meantime…
Hopefully it’s a false alarm. But if it isn’t…
Silly me, I thought water was treated someplace between the reservoir and the city water supply, since all the reservoirs I’ve ever seen are … umm… open-air lakes.
But I suppose if there’s a closed and secured reservoir for treated water… an intruder there would be a bit more of a concern
Some places seem to use reservoir interchangeably with storage tank, and the latter type of facility is usually after treatment in my experience.
Poking at news, they found clothing “and personal items” next to a storage tank.
… yeah, boiling isn’t going to fix “contains dead person.”
Ugh. They’re gonna have to flush and bleach that tank pretty thoroughly.
Quite likely.
Best possible result is that it’s all a practical joke by someone. But if it isn’t then they’re going to need to thoroughly clean.
The official city notice says something about how they started trying to drain the tank/reservoir/thingummy, but the drain channels were clogged with debris, and the process was halted:
https://spcity.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=195
failure to secure and failure to maintain drinking water facilities is not a good look for the city.
It sounds like the problem draining is external to the tank. I’m guessing that there are pipes leading out of the tank that are ordinarily dry, and haven’t been kept properly cleaned.
And yes, bad look for Santa Paula. Protecting the water supply is one of the most important functions of a modern city.
I can just see the new mandated warning signs: “This is not a swimming pool.”
At least “Contains dead person” is somewhat better than “Contains poison”, if only because it is less likely to indicate mass-murderous malice.
:chirps: Might be both!
The reservoir in Cincinnati’s Eden Park lies underground, replacing an open air reservoir previously held back by a massive wall.
Unfirtunately, I don’t know the full details. And it might very well be the treatment plant that was being referred to (even though the report said reservoir). It should be noted that the warning is only for half of the city residents, which suggests it’s an intermediate location for the city’s water supply.
He watched from the platform as the train slowly approached, then slowed to a stop. The doors on the closest coach opened. At the first stop of the first train of the day, nobody emerged. Instead, he joined the small crowd and stepped inside.