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. 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 ALMA BOYKIN: Wheels of Empire: Merchant and Empire Book Nine
Water driving wheels driving danger.
Without bread, hunger stalks the people of Jerwood. The old grist mill burned and a new one must be built. Count Ealdred of Jerwood hires Harald Tolson, called Halfpaw, to construct a larger, modern mill. A mill that the count will own.
Harald and his journeyman walk into trouble when they enter Jerwood’s gates. Why did the mill burn? Who doesn’t want a better, larger mill built? And what lengths will those people go to in order to get what they desire?
Harald finds himself battling the elements, suspicion, and danger in order to complete his contract. But his opponents underestimate how stubborn and determined a millwright can be. The Wheel always turns, something Harald knows full well.
FROM ANNA FERREIRA: The Root of All Evil
(I was beta reader on this one, and like it – SAH)
When murder comes to Stockton, it brings long-buried secrets in its wake…
Kate Bereton leads a busy but unexciting life as the clergyman’s only daughter in a small Dorsetshire village. She’s grateful for the break in routine heralded by the arrival of her stepmother’s latest guests, but when Kate discovers a dead body in the parsonage one morning, she finds herself in much more danger than she could have ever anticipated. Terrified and desperate, she turns to the local magistrate for help. Mr. Reddington is eager to aid his dear friend Miss Bereton, but can they discover the murderer before it’s too late, and the secrets of the past are forgotten forever?
With a dash of romance and a generous helping of mystery, The Root of All Evil is a charming whodunit that will delight fans of Jane Austen and Agatha Christie alike.
from M. C. A. HOGARTH: An Heir to Thorns and Steel (Blood Ladders Trilogy Book 1)
Morgan Locke, university student, has been hiding his debilitating illness with fair enough success when two unlikely emissaries arrive bearing the news that he is prince to a nation of creatures out of folklore. Ridiculous! And yet, if magic exists…could it heal him? The ensuing journey will resurrect the forgotten griefs of history, and before it’s over, all the world will be remade by thorns and steel….
Book 1 of the Blood Ladders trilogy, an epic fantasy with sociopathic elves, vampiric genets, and the philosophy students mixed up in the lot.
FROM LINDSAY PETERSEN: Pleasures & Perils (The Reluctant Chrononaut Book 1)
Imagine waking up from a stimulating massage and finding yourself in a stranger’s bedroom in 1824. What do you do? What can you do?
All your skills, your expert-level understanding of work-arounds and pop-culture references? All useless. Your vast knowledge of the cyber-world is mocked by steam-age reality, and you can’t ‘predict’ the future because your recollection of historical happenings since 1824 is … unreliable.
You do have one asset, though – you’re a beautiful woman with a ”modern’take on sex. In any era that will get a woman far.
Kate Thomason, twenty-first century healer, is snatched from an eight-handed clone massage in twenty-ninety-seven by H. G. Wells’ time machine. She awakes in Wells’ bedroom in eighteen-ninety-seven, wearing only a sheer peignoir. Whatever could Wells want her for? He tells her he can’t send her back; what can she do in a world wholly foreign to her? She has ideas.
A romantic steampunk adventure, first in a series. An earlier version was released as The Reluctant Chrononaut.
FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Red Star, Yellow Sign
Whom the gods would destroy, they first drive mad.
It’s 1934, and the assassination of Sergei Kirov, Leningrad’s Communist Party chief, has rocked the Soviet Union. When an up and coming young Party official is assigned to investigate, it looks like an open and shut case.
The further Nikolai Yezhov looks into the case, the stranger things become. Mysterious entities lie beneath the swamps upon which Leningrad was founded. Because he has stumbled upon these secrets older than humanity itself, Yezhov must be eliminated. But first he must be led to commit acts that will ensure that history will forever remember him as a vicious criminal.
FROM HOLLY CHISM: Fixing Up Love
Amaryllis left school with a worthless degree and a fiance who wasn’t that into her. She refused to go back home to wallow in her family’s judgment of her choices, so she took refuge with her best friend instead. Her very handy best friend, who was fixing up a foreclosed house he’d bought. It was a really big job, and he could definitely use her help. His handiness kind of made her want to get handsy, but would fixing up the house together fix up their relationship as well?
FROM I. M. LERNER: The Secret Under the Staircase (Under the Staircase – An Economic Adventure Series for Kids)
“So, you’re the ones…”
A mysterious package appears just as Maya and Nate start helping in their grandparents’ store. Inside is just one book: a faded copy of Free to Choose. In a race against time, they must decipher a series of cryptic messages to discover the secret under the staircase. But can a bunch of kids really solve the centuries-old riddle? Can they save their beloved town before it’s too late?Under the Staircase™ Books
A mystery and adventure series that teaches treasured values: personal responsibility, individual liberty, and economic freedom.Psst! Parents & Teachers: The first book in the series introduces a variety of Milton Friedman’s concepts—the Power of the Market, the Tyranny of Controls, What’s Wrong with Our Schools?, and other topics—using examples from kids’ day-to-day lives in school, with friends, and in familiar situations.
FROM MARY CATELLI: Treachery And Spells
Two novellas of magic and adventure. . . Caught between pirates who would force him to use wizardry in their aid, and a king who would force him to spy, Alik will need every scrap of wits and wizardry to forge his own path. A curse of ill luck leaves Perriel and Gareth trapped in an endless winter, with only the faintest hope of breaking free.
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: THANKFUL
According To Hoyt 
Since this a thread about writers, may I direct your attention to today’s offering from Oglaf.com.
Very NSFW! today, and frequently.
I cannot predict how many who read that will be thankful they did.
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Lord Albert Hamilton was wearing his formal Wizard garb beside his close friend & fellow Wizard Henry Makemson as the Wizards of Albion gathered to mourn the death of the Grand Arch Wizard Royal Wizards Corps, an honored man that Lord Albert had only recently learned was the father of his friend Henry Makemson.
And now it was Henry’s turn to speak.
“I always knew that my father was an important Wizard of the Realm but I grew up without knowing a father. It was only after I ended my career as a Warrior-Wizard of the Realm that he told me that he was my father. At the time, I wasn’t sure of what I thought of him and that meeting didn’t end on a good note.”
“Still, after wards I learned more about my father and about the Wizards who grew up knowing that he was their father. Many failed as people as they attempted to live up to their father’s legend. Others failed because they attempted to use their father to advice their careers. To give my father justice, he expected his children to advance on their merits not based on who their father was.”
“Thanks to his “neglect”, I grew into a Wizard and Man who could stand on my own merits. For that I am thankful and wish that I had taken the time to see my father as a fellow human not as a “neglectful” father.”
“Good bye Father”.
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My post appears to be stuck in moderation. Word Press Must Die!
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“Oh, he won’t be fool enough to hide down that way, it’s a dead end,” said a servant, sharply. “Don’t waste your time, he’ll get away.”
Liam’s shoulders slumped in relief. His heartbeat slowed again. Thank Heaven for blessing him with safety. He listened for footsteps. None came his way.
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“The culture is going to Hell in a handbasket!”
“They’re incompetent. Look, even the Red Pope had to condemn their latest antics. Be thankful.”
“Well, the Marxists like him are putting the economy into the shitter!”
“They’re incompetent, too. Look, even right now, you can have a hamburger any time you want one – even with cheese on it. They’re lucky if their iron rice bowl is even filled up. Be thankful.”
“I won’t have that for very long, the Chinese are arming up to take over the world!”
“Even more incompetents. Learn your history. The Chinese haven’t EVER actually conquered anything more than a cold, dry, and unpopulated wasteland like Tibet. They’ve BEEN conquered multiple times, and simply become part of their conqueror’s empire. Be thankful.”
“Okay, okay. So I should be thankful for incompetency?”
“Yes, exactly. BUT ONLY SO LONG AS IT ISN’T YOURS! Now get out of here.”
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Stolen… Thank you.
Ankh-Morpork Thieves Guild
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Master Gregor’s voice rose sharply. “Captain Edmund. Go and warn the soldiers that they may have to move without warning, and I will be grateful for their readiness to do so swiftly.”
A great golden bear of a man bowed to the Master of the Mountains, and left.
“All my people must keep watch for any danger,” said Master Gregor. “Nevertheless, our work must go on through such watch. I will hear the next case.”
A man walked forward with a case of a dispute about trespass by a cow. He did not seem thankful for the judgment against him.
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Great set of promos today, thanks!
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When I came to Tolman as an exchange student, I knew I’d be adjusting to a lower level of technology. It wasn’t so much that the Tolmaners were against technology than they believed it should be used mindfully, in a humane way.
So I’d spent a fair amount of time beforehand on my physical fitness, to make sure I was prepared to do a lot more walking and biking than I was used to. Being from a slightly heavier world did help, but I still had to work on my stamina after a lifetime of hopping into a flitter to go anywhere beyond one’s own neighborhood. And I’d done my best to prepare myself mentally for not being able to flit off to shop halfway across the continent and be home back home in time for supper, a world where travel was a rare treat and generally slow.
But what caught me completely by surprise was receiving some small gift a few days after my arrival, and then having my host parents sit me down at the kitchen table and hand me a pad of paper and a pen. Not even a tablet and a stylus — longhand thank-you notes weren’t a completely alien concept to me, although we usually typed any but the most formal that had to be e-mailed as an attached image file — but an actual pen with chemical ink and sheets of pressed vegetable fiber, like this were Old Earth before Bob Noyce and Steve Jobs invented the computer.
Every time I made a mistake, I’d have to tear that sheet off and start over at the beginning. At first it was incredibly frustrating, but after the third or fourth attempt, as it really sank in that I couldn’t just tap the eraser icon and remove a stray mark or cut and paste to make room for a missing word, I began to write more slowly and carefully. Think about each word, each letter before you form it, because you can’t just fix it in post.
And it seemed the Tolmaners had so many of these notes you had to write. Not just for birthday and holiday presents, but after anything but the most insignificant social visit, you were expected to write what was called a “bread and butter” note, or any of an astonishingly long list of things. Every one of them written in ink on paper, letter-perfect or you do it again until it is.
But now that I’m home again, I can see how it fits into their philosophy of mindfulness. Not that I’d want to go back to writing thank-you notes on paper and paying to have them shipped to their recipients, even if I wouldn’t be thought freakishly eccentric for doing so — but it did make me more aware of connections to other people.
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“Good thing they picked turkeys, all those years ago. Not quite as efficient as chickens, but could you imagine having to feed cows just for the tradition of it all?” Svetlana Saldana’s young voice was low but very easily heard, from two feet away.
The table was long and crowded, under the big quartz ceiling. Itself under the ice-dome, that made both the small bright circle and the far larger, dimmer marble both look bluish, because the ice filtered reds and yellows before anything else — unless you counted hard radiation.
Mario Bennett almost-chuckled. “Why not wish for them to have had shrimp for dinner, Svieta? But the answer is, of course, they were huntin’ their turkeys, not ranching them. You can only hunt what’s already out there. Though of course they did grow corn ‘n’ stuff.”
“If you lot don’t behave, you’ll end up having nothing but krill for dinner, any of you, if you don’t settle down,” warned Isaac Stein’s low, purring, rumbling voice. “They and us got one big thing in common, and that is how We Made It.” The capital letters were easily audible. “And, dear Svetlana, the whole point of Designing For Abundance is that you can have steak when you really want it, too, and I don’t mean just tuna.”
There was a sound like a short organ chord, and Estelle Lombard got up to speak. “Long years ago, by any years you count, a group of bold people sailed across the sea to America. They came over with some stupid communistic ideas, that almost got ’em killed. But they learned better fast and not too many people died, and then they got on well.” (There were a few hisses and hoots at “communistic” and especially from the little’uns.) “And then it came time to recognize their own Design For Abundance was workin’ out well enough; so they threw themselves a little feast to celebrate and thank the Powers that Be Behind All Things, and most of all their shared God of Abraham and Isaac. And our own merry little party today echoes theirs.”
She took a drink of cold sharp ale. “Callisto is a long far way from Old America. And we honor the Lord of the Book, most of all, but we hold dear all those Others our people hold dear too. We remember how our ancestors landed on raw ice and frozen mud, and slowly hacked and hammered that wilderness into a new homeland and a home. We had, and needed, so much the old Pilgrims did not have; but we brought the same as they did: faith in the wide starry world, faith in the Holy Powers that bless us all and without whom we could not flourish, and faith in each other. Not as perfect creatures, but as ones who’re good enough. Who know the one deepest thing that connects them and us and all but a few too-lucky humans, ever.
“‘If you don’t work, you die.'” And there was something like a muffled and scattered round of applause, with not a few ‘Amens’ mixed in.
“So we give thanks to the World, to Those Above, and to our ancestors and our neighbors who did and do the work of living.” She raised her hands in a particular sort of benediction. “Let’s eat and give thanks!”
And under the watchful eyes of Jupiter and the Sun, they did just that.
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”Okay, the consensus we’re seeing from sigint is the bomb was in his mattress, and it went off that night, right?”
”Yeah, I’m sure the air defense folks there are thankful it wasn’t an air strike the way everyone thought initially, so this massive witch hunt isn’t pointed at them.”
”Right. But riddle me this: How did the bomb, going off in the mattress on which the target was presumably reclining in repose at the time, also kill the guy’s bodyguard?”
”Oh, yeah. Hm. So, he was the really close protection detail?”
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The Director of Community Integrity smiled wanly at Kevin. “I know it’s been tough,” he said, “but I want you to know we’re thankful you’ve been so supportive of our mission.”
Their mission, Kevin thought, was beyond comprehension, though he didn’t say so. “Glad I could help,” he said quietly.
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And what should I be thankful for? wondered Kevin. That I’m not expelled yet? That I haven’t had the hell beaten out of me? That I get to be a Community Assistant, which means I’m the DCI’s stooge as long as I rat out whomever I’m told to rat out?
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I have to ask.
“…the Blood Ladders trilogy, an epic fantasy with sociopathic elves, vampiric genets, and the philosophy students mixed up in the lot.”
Vampiric GENETS? You mean the little cat-like critters?
…or was that just a typo? *heads off to look up said trilogy*
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Damn, it IS “genets”. Begorra.
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O Lord, for what we are about to receive, may we be truly thankful. Or so the RN gunners in all those age of sail books said whilst awaiting the other ship’s broadside.
Monday is shaping up to be a wild one. MUFG, Japan’s largest bank, is crashing. The Japanese bond market has essentially collapsed, and there’s a run on the Yen, which is causing one of the world’s largest carry trades to unwind. Further, for those who believed that crypto currency could be, well, currency et , well they’re all crashing too. US futures are soft, and Nasdaq looks to be continuing Friday’s rout.
August is traditionally when these things start with the climax in October. Bidenomics baby …. though I still think it’s mostly central banks pushing on the demographic string. Too much debt, not enough people.
My mini vacation looks to be going out the window,
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PS. The carry trade is about $20 Trillion and highly leveraged. We’re going to find out about a lot of people who’ve been swimming naked.
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The Journal reported on a 1987-level drop in the Neike (?) overnight. Gonna be a wild ride.
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I was way too early …. again. It’s been painful, since I’ve been waiting for exactly this since August of last year. People can be so unkind.
Look for wild swings. Don’t be surprised if the US closes up on the day. They’ll want to front run the rate cuts. It’s actually very “interesting” the Fed will want to cut rates, but that will make the carry trade debacle even worse and the carry trade is what underlies (e.g.,) Nividia leaving aside that it’s $20 Trillion and looks to be cracking, carrying several big Japanese banks with it. My bet: Fed cuts, markets surge, much celebration and self congratulation, carry trade unwinds, markets crash, much panic and calls for rate cuts and bailouts. Lather, rinse, repeat.
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Nikkei is the big companies. (top 225.). The other Japanese index is the Topix, which is broader.
MUFG looks to be the weakest, for now. That’s the Mitsubishi zaibatsu bank. Think JPMorgan and you’ll have an idea just how big and central they are.
China comes into it too. Japanese banks do most of the direct work clearing into China. All part of the carry trade taking advantage of the “free” money.
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Sorry about the mini vacation.
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Lerner Triology off to Grandaughter.
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“We should be thankful that they are dead and gone and can not trouble us,” said Diggory.
Marcus thought of the tales that pirates had taken the island as an outpost. But then, the king had removed them and put a monastery there to keep it from other, worse inhabitants.
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