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
*THERE WILL BE SOME OF MY BOOKS ON SALE ON CHRISTMAS EVE. HOPEFULLY I REMEMBER TO POST THEM… YEAH. IT’S LIKE THAT. – SAH*
FROM HOLLY LEROY: You Kill Me – A Lt. Eve Sharpe Thriller
Love J. A. Konrath’s Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels? Try Lt. Eve Sharpe.
LIEUTENANT EVE SHARPE should have seen the avalanche of trouble headed her way but events had dulled her edge and crumbled her foundation of toughness. With the press and politicians all coming for her, Eve begins to question whether she is really a cold blooded murderer or simply losing her mind. Was it an officer involved shooting gone wrong? An honest mistake? Or, something much, much worse?
There’s one thing for sure, it has turned the Chicago Police Department upside down, and Lieutenant Eve Sharpe’s life along with it.
FROM LESLEE SHEU: Kumasagi, Part 4: Sindhupat
To heal the blood of the earth, a secret bond must be revealed…
Asta travels to Sindhupat Island, hoping to meet a spiritual master who will help her overcome her difficulties with the mystic arts. The island, however, reveals a deeper purpose when Asta begins to have disturbing visions from Najat’s childhood there.
Warned by Najat’s memories, Asta learns that the island’s most famous denizen, Delan Gampoban, is not the man that songs and stories of legend would have him seem. With the island’s sacred grotto in ruins, Asta follows the clues to how the grotto might be restored—putting her on a collision course with the man who tormented Najat for years.
In Shakti Lake City, Najat still holds a portion of Asta’s kana, which may be the key to bringing forth new life from the island’s destin cove. Najat and Asta’s connection allows them to work together across the distance … but soon they may be forced to give up their bond forever.
FROM HOLLY CHISM: Holidays and Holy Days (Modern Gods)
Hera was hard at work in her counseling office when her clients started cancelling for Thanksgiving travel. She…hadn’t realized that a) that was coming up, or b) what it actually about…until she did a little research and decided to celebrate. In the process, she learns about Christmas coming, and decides that it’s high time somebody threw Christ a birthday party.
Of course, nothing goes as planned, but when does it ever?
FROM DALE COZORT: Through the Wild Gate
Robinette Thornburg, the half-human daughter of ultra-rich Robert Thornburg, thought she was fully human, just weird, for the first twenty-one years of her life. She went to expensive private schools, then Harvard. On her twenty-first birthday, she learned that she was half Mangi, the result of an encounter between her father and a primitive near-human woman from the Wild, an alternate reality North America where primitive humans arrived half a million years ago, but no modern humans ever did.
That was the first she had heard of Mangi or the Wild, closely held secrets of the wealthy families who control Gates to it, but she finds out far more than she wants to about the Wild when mysterious enemies kidnap her and leave her to die in the Wild, naked and weaponless.
Robinette nearly starves before finding her way back to our world through an early, uncontrolled Gate. She vows revenge, but on who? She teams up with Eric Carter, a down on his luck private eye and former bodyguard to her father. The two try to figure out who kidnapped Robinette and why, a quest that takes them through the decadent world of the Gate families, the only law in the Wild. It also takes them back to the Wild and then to a final confrontation with, their lives and the fate of the Wild at stake.
FROM MARY CATELLI: Fever and Snow
A short story of a curse, a king, and a child.
A warlord of fire can lay curses of fever. A woman of snow can freeze a man to death.
Pierre, knight of the king, is burning with fever from the curse of the warlord when he learns a possibility that might save him — and the kingdom. It turns on a child.
FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Grandmaster’s Gambit
The disastrous war of 1913 is over, and young journalist Isaak Babel has used his fame as a war correspondent to win a peacetime job covering an international chess tournament in New York City. However, trouble is aboard the airship Grossdeuschland, in the form of the notorious Bolshevik terrorist Koba and his henchmen. Men with a dark plan, and New York City will not welcome their visit.
ADDENDUM: I’ve been doing readings and short stories, to feel I’m giving something back for my Winter fundraiser. (There will be dog story either tonight or tomorrow. Was going to be tonight, but my kid informed me he’s taking me to a movie this afternoon, so I guess not? Anyway, since we’ve been having a furry Christmas season, this one will be The Bork of Christmas. But yesterday one of you contacted me asking for a link to the reading I did for my substack subscribers (I intend to do three a month for paid, one for free. In case I haven’t got around to doing chapters, because well… maybe next year will be better? I’ll try at least. Anyway, right now the ones out are all free and I see no reason not to share the links here. So, hold up.
READINGS:
Short stories, so far:
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: REWARD
According To Hoyt 
Holidays and Holy Days looked promising from the sample, so I’m reading it and finding it entertaining. But I’m surprised by the line about Thanksgiving being the third Thursday in November. We’ve always celebrated it on the fourth Thursday. Is the author Canadian or something?
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IIRC, there was some finagling on that, under FDR. There’s a little animated scene in Holiday Inn* that shows the shift.
Wiki says it was fixed for the 4th Thursday in 1941.
((*)) IMHO a better film than White Christmas, which song HI does include. Any film with Fred Astaire and firecrackers can’t be bad. :)
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Now I did not know that. The first Thanksgivings I remember were sometime in the 1950s. . . .
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No. Just ADD… :D
And no, not me.
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Ah. I think I have just enough OCD to help me as a copy editor, and I think OCD and ADD protect against each other somewhat . . .
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“Goodness is its own reward.”
Elaine bit her tongue, hard. How many times had she heard those words as a child, the sanctimonious pronunciation spoiling any feeling of accomplishment, just because she’d hoped for some treat as a result? No, she was not going to use that line with her own children, especially when they’d tried so very hard to be good.
She knelt to her younger son’s eye level. Basil always seemed to struggled more with impulse control than his siblings. Not just anger, although he had a temper to match his Roosa-red hair. All his emotions were on hair triggers, from disappointment to joy, and tended to overflow their bounds.
“I’m very proud of how well you behaved today. I know it was hard for you with so many people being here.” As she suggested possibilities of a special activity they might do together, she hoped that it would help take his focus away from not getting some tangible reward.
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Mr Wayne has experienced some difficulties and may not have dependents for some time.
I am sorry, Master Grayson, but you must be rewarded.
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Carpapult ready!
Loaded and aimed.
Twang!
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Too much Batman?
A different scene.
King Henry sat in a window niche, pondering his options.
Baron Roger, Warden of the North, deserved a boon. Henry had several eligible widows and daughters as his wards, and what would better tie Roger to the King than a fine wife?
But there were other considerations. Isabel, widow, had quite a lot of property in her dowry, too much to make Henry comfortable. Mary, while sweet-spoken, had too little.
But Winifred! Now, there was a moderate dowry; Winifred, however, was known for her tart tongue and occasional peculiar utterances. Still, a good match.
Henry would reward the Warden with the Weird Word Ward.
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The Rogue Ancient held both Alex and the rogue Ultra with his warping of reality powers but hadn’t attempted to kill either of them.
“Now young warrior, why did you pursue this little rogue into my domain” the Rogue Ancient asked?
Alex responded, “Lord Ancient, I pursued him because he attempted to kill Powerless who are related to my promised bride who is an Ultra. I wasn’t aware that he was seeking refuge in your domain.”
“Reasonable reason to intrude into my domain. Now little rogue, my Brethren and I have many disagreements concerning the status of the Powerless on Manshome but I agree with them concerning protection of the kin of the Powered. So, the question is what reward, little rogue, do you deserve for this attempt?”
Alex had heard about “Evil Grins” but he have never seen such an expression as he saw on the face of the Rogue Ancient. The rogue Ultra looked at the Rogue Ancient with a look of horror on his face.
As the rogue turned into stone, the Rogue Ancient said “Young warrior, take this worthless being to my Brethren’s Place of Power. By the time he returns to the flesh, my Brethren will think of a proper reward for him”.
“Yes Lord Ancient.”
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The wizard sat down and looked over his domicile. He hated, absolutely hated it, when his family came by without warning. They come tramping through like they owned the place and rearrange the defensive protections he had around it because they didn’t look right to his mother’s eye. But they fit his purposes and habits. And so, he had to re-ward it every time.
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He needs to ward the wards, then ward the wardings. It’d be messy, but enough levels and troublemakers are delayed if not deterred.
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Belladona curled up against me, her head in my lap, as she purred in contentment. “Adelaide, I think I deserve a reward,” she cooed.
“Oh?” I asked, eyebrow raised. “What would you like to be rewarded with?”
She turned and gently pushed me onto my back, climbing over me with the delicacy of a kitten. “I want to be devoured by you,” she trilled with a smile, putting the heel of her palms gently on my shoulders. As she was holding herself up and away from my body, Belladona increased the weight on her palms as she turned her head enough to let her hair fall down over her shoulders. “I want you to consume me as I consume you, our ouroboros of passions.”
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“I can’t understand why we’re not getting any tips about the rogue salamander-handler,” Sheriff Dumkopf griped. He waved to the signs that had gone up over the county, saying, “Reward offered. For information leading to the capture of the salamanders—$20,000.”
Meanwhile, back at the print shop, two salamanders slapped forefeet, then returned to heating the coffee for their staff.
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“No one knows that this is anything but a storm,” said Osgar.
“I knew,” said Fianna. “I felt it. Why did you think I came here? If I, being a stranger, knew?”
Osgar stood like stone for a minute, and Fianna felt certain he used magic.
“Take the reward of your knowledge, then, in your second son,” said Osgar. “I will announce his birth.”
Fianna bowed her head over the baby. Osgar could announce things in a manner that quelled all questions.
“You will tell Torrin he has a brother.” His eyes narrowed. “He will need a name. After yours?”
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Slowly, he straightened. His heart returned to an ordinary pace. Then he heard something howl. For a moment, his eyes squeezed shut. Of course that would be the reward for coming alive through the haunts: another threat to his life. He doubted that this one could not move.
He walked.
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Marcus scowled.
“Rest, good sir,” she said, gently. “Rest. You tried so hard. It is not really your fault that you failed. Rest is the reward for having lasted so long, when you had no way to know.”
She smiled and stood, and began to gather the youngsters to her.
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“How can you call it ‘justice’ when your laws so often punish the innocent and reward the guilty? I can see who is lying, but the liars seem to prevail more often than not.”
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“If I conceded to you moonbats that it’s possible that the Health Insurance CEO was an SOB that I needed killin’, can I be rewarded with you stop being such freakin’ hypocrites when it comes to guns?”
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It was good champagne — surely not big-C Champagne from French Champagne, dear as that came — especially in being semi-sweet and not the “brut” or even “extra dry” that so many stocked and bought and served and drank, all as if without once noticing its lack of balance to the bitter and the sour.
Elinor herself, I concluded, would’ve approved. Which was the point here.
And I did that semi-public half-a-toast thing, where one looks through the amber bubble-chamber fluid in one’s glass (as if it holds a fair fraction of all the secrets of the universe), and says something like, “Here’s to Miss Elinor and her enjoyment of her eternal reward, seldom ever more deserved. And surely to her the very cream of the jest.” And sipped, meditatively.
As one does, so often, at wakes. Whether singularly, or not.
“Young man. Surely you must know, if you knew her at all, that Elinor MacKay was the most ardent and confirmed of atheists.” It was Caroline Beauchamp, one of Herself’s circle right enough, but also one of a few she’d diverted herself regularly with, in merry puncturing of thoughtless pomposity. Her voice held that hectoring sort of edge, rather like the sound of a heavy bandsaw screaming its workmanlike way stolidly through some hardened alloy.
And it accused; as if I’d neglected some vital, validating credential.
“But of course she was the most devout of atheists, and most inclined to materialist outlooks too. Which as I said (apologies to Mister Cabell) is the very cream of the jest. The greatest practical joke ever pulled; the lovely but startling experience of being an atheist in the afterlife.”
She looked at me, in that secure-in-the-herd way of her ilk, and gave her tightly-curled black short hair a prim little shake. “Obviously, Mister Campbell, you’re an example of the triumph of blind faith over reason and experience.” As if I’d confessed to being a Papist instead of true Church of England, back when that was ordained from on high to be such a dastardly sin.
And I smiled at her, the real smile, over the rim of my glass. Somehow I’d no doubt she’d chosen the extra-dry, which she now drank without tasting.
“Rather instead the triumph of experience and reasoning over the steady osmotic pressure of custom and indoctrination, Miss Caroline. Though I was never less than an agnostic, perhaps a deist agnostic, ever at any point of my philosophically conscious life.” And I smiled, knowingly. As I could hear the Scottish accents — sly emanations of the Gaelic deep beneath, not simply the conventional lowlands intonations — strengthen in my voice.
“But that changed the afternoon young Alasdair Campbell fell through the ice on a too-warm winte’sr day, and had to be pulled out further down the river where the ice opened for a bend in the stream. By the time they did manage to do that, I’d become chilled and quite lost consciousness; and soon after I’d been laid out on the riverbank, my heart stopped entirely.
“Obviously they did get it restarted, and likely the cold was all that did save me from taking dire harm. But I came back to myself with quite a set of experiences, Mistress Beauchamp, which my logical and rational mind did not and could not deny or dismiss as mere fancy or hallucination or coma-dream, most unscientifically.”
And I held my glass up, and sipped. “To misquote the old Swiss doctor, it isn’t that I believe in God, and all the rest — instead, I know, through having been there and done that and rehearsed death itself well-enough.”
Imitatio Christi, I’d always supposed, though as always in my own ever bumbling and counterfeit way.
The fire in her sooty-brown eyes was almost at red heat by then, but she did not so much as blink or twitch a cheek. “There’s no arguing with pure delusion, is there?” she said self-importantly, and turned her back to go.
“Which is why I frame no arguments to it, only merely explanations.” And I tipped my glass, to the shades of Elinor Mac Aoidh and Isaac Newton, and drank it deliciously dry. “Full blessed be ye, Elinor, and full joyful in your felicitious confoundment.” The last was barely above a whisper; but then only I and the grateful, attentive dead needed to hear it after all.
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