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 JAMES YOUNG: On Seas So Crimson: Usurper’s War Collection No. 1 (The Usurper’s War: An Alternative World War II)
“[A]uthor James Young shows himself to be a master of that science fiction sub-genre called ‘Alternate History’.”–Midwest Book Review
Adolf Hitler is dead. Great Britain lies prostrate, subdued under a storm of poison gas and incendiaries that have turned the great city of London into a blazing abattoir. The Royal Family’s whereabouts are unknown, while Heinrich Himmler, new Fuhrer of the victorious Reich, prepares to dictate terms to Lord Halifax’s government.
For RAF Squadron Leader Adam Haynes, London’s destruction is the nightmare outcome of years spent fighting the specter of Fascism. With his own combatant status uncertain, Adam must rush to save as many of his Polish-speaking pilots as he can.
For Lieutenant (j.g.) Eric Cobb, Great Britain’s subjugation has immediate and deadly effects. After his flight leader is murdered by Kriegsmarine anti-aircraft fire, Eric must decide between remaining neutral or helping his British rescuers. His choices will dramatically alter the course of history.
In the Pacific, Rear Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi witnesses firsthand the myriad opportunities that Germany’s victory has provided for Japan. Defeated in China by Soviet forces after the Imperial Army foolishly attached northwards in December 1941, Japan has not only changed governments to a Navy dominated cabinet, but also changed strategies. It is to the south, in the oil rich Dutch East Indies, that Nippon will find her destiny. Yamaguchi, as the new head of the Kido Butai, must develop a plan that prevents American interference while simultaneously husbanding the Imperial Japanese Navy’s strength for a single, great Decisive Battle.
BY MANLY WADE WELLMAN, WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY D. JASON FLEMING: Sojarr of Titan (Annotated): The Classic Pulp Planetary Romance
When the spaceship crashed on Saturn’s largest moon, the pilot adventurer died. But his infant son did not. Raising himself in the wilds of an alien world, Sojarr survives, and thrives, discovering a strange tribe of gypsy humans, and battling roving bands of monstrous natives…
Until the day another ship falls from the sky and threatens to throw two worlds into chaos!
- This iktaPOP Media edition contains a new introduction giving the novel genre and historical context.
FROM HOLLY CHISM: Bar Tabs: A Modern Gods Story
Brief back stories on the characters from the Modern Gods universe.
FROM KAREN MYERS: Bound into the Blood – A Virginian in Elfland (The Hounds of Annwn Book 4)
DISTURBING THE FAMILY SECRETS COULD BRING RUIN TO EVERYTHING HE’S WORKED SO HARD TO BUILD.
George Talbot Traherne, the human huntsman for the Wild Hunt, is preparing for the birth of his child by exploring the family papers about his parents and their deaths. When his improved relationship with his patron, the antlered god Cernunnos, is jeopardized by an unexpected opposition, he finds he must choose between loyalty to family and loyalty to a god.
He discovers he doesn’t know either of them as well as he thought he did. His search for answers takes him to the human world with unsuitable companions.
How will he keep a rock-wight safe from detection, or even teach her the rules of the road? And what will he awaken in the process, bringing disaster back to his family on his own doorstep? What if his loyalty is misplaced? What will be the price of his mistakes?
FROM RACONTEUR PRESS WITH STORIES BY CHRISTOPHER R. DINOTE AND JOSH HILL: Wyrd Warfare (Raconteur Press Anthologies Book 49)
“I was born in the late 1970s, which means I grew up in a family that held living memories of World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. My generation was exposed to a plethora of culture and entertainment much earlier than we probably should have been. War filled many of those books, comics, games, songs, and films. The historical, the fantastical, what was, might have been, never happened, should have happened, and thanks be to God didn’t happen. World War III was always imminent. War Games and Missile Command reminded us there was no way to win. We expected the end to come like The Day After or The Terminator. Maybe it already happened, maybe we were already dead and just didn’t realize it.
The stories in this anthology draw from a multitude of inspirations: real-life deployments, places, things, people. Monsters. Events. Incidents. Sacrifices. Heroism. Horror.” From the Introduction by Chris DiNote)
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 ANNA FERREIRA: The Flight of Miss Stanhope: A Short and Sweet Regency Romance
Marianne Stanhope is in trouble. Her family is urging her to accept the attentions of a most odious suitor, so she turns to a gentleman of her acquaintance for aid. But Mr. Firth has his own reasons for assisting Miss Stanhope, and it falls to her childhood friend Mr. Killingham to convince her that she’s made a dreadful mistake.
FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Draw One In The Dark (The Shifter Series Book 1)
Deep in the Colorado Rockies, Kyrie Smith has mastered the art of keeping secrets: like how she turns into a panther at will, or how she’s trying to solve a string of shifter murders while serving up the daily special. But she’s not the only one with something to hide.
Take her coworker Tom Ormson—your typical guy next door, if your typical guy could transform into a dragon and might have accidentally killed someone. Then there’s the lion-shifting cop investigating the murders, a guilt-ridden father, and a trio of dragon shifters hunting for something called the Pearl of Heaven.
As if navigating a world of supernatural intrigue wasn’t complicated enough, Tom’s falling for Kyrie, discovering powers that shouldn’t exist, and learning that trust is a two-way street paved with decades of secrets. In Goldport, Colorado, where the coffee’s always hot and the shifters are always watching, solving a murder might be the easiest part of Kyrie’s day.
Welcome to small-town life where everyone has something to hide—and some of those secrets have scales, claws, and a tendency to roar.
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.
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: equable
According To Hoyt 
Her heart hammered, and hammered the harder as a strange man embraced Giovanni.
Nino slipped Anastasia from her arms and pushed her toward them. A jumbled minute later, she stood before him, and Giovanni told his father that she was his wife, who had won him from the evil spell, and these others were their faithful attendants, and the children they carried were their children.
Every one of them seemed to carry it off so calmly as the guards encircled them. The children even stopped their wails to stare at Prince Lindoro, and coo in response to Prince Lindoro’s touch.
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Helena looked at her. Be calm and equable, Scholastica reminded herself. You are the archmage, and your judgment needs to be above reproach. All the more in pickles like this one.
Helena let out her breath and climbed from the wagon to stand nearby. The very model of a wizard.
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“I don’t know how you can call Bruce equable? He’s got a big temper.”
“My dear Steve, he’s always angry but doesn’t show it that much.”
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By the way, Andre Norton’s “Postmarked The Stars” is available on the Kindle store.
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The pale-haired girl lay her hand on his shoulder again. Stay calm, he told himself. Stay calm.
Moments later, he again shot the wildling from behind. It drew blood, but the wildling showed only rage and no weakening.
The girl whispered, “How quickly can you load those arrows? Fast enough to do it during the fight?”
“If you leap us between,” he said. If she could make it leap — “Where will you leap it to?”
She shook her head. “Something else.” Then she leapt them away.
He held out an arrow, open. She touched it, and it glowed brightly.
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An owl glared back at her. Its eyes glowed in the dimness, and brightly enough to illuminate the red leaves of the tree it perched on. Blood red.
Her heart hammered. She reminded herself that she knew nothing against the owl, and she needed to be calm. It still hammered.
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“So, let me get this straight. You got in a big fight with your brother, even though you know we have rules in this family about no squabbling?”
“But Mom, it wasn’t a squabble!”
“It wasn’t a squabble? This I’ve got to hear. What was it, then?”
“Well, we were on a Zoom chat at the time, so it was more of an e-squabble. An equable, so to speak.”
“Go to your room, young man! And take this carp with you!”
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Hope a certain someone is feeling better today. It would be equable in the grand scheme of things for her to have a good day now and then.
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Post on Twitter this morning where an fuy tried to run over his neighbor’s Republican campaign sign (for the WI Supreme Court race) and got stuck in the ditch.
Karma, baby.
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Hi, Sara. Thanks for your overnight Instaposts and your support of indie authors. I realize your focus is on fiction in the broadest sense, but was wondering whether you might consider a hat-tip to something like this series of Bible-reading annuals, which are not at all rudimentary, but arise in the imaginative space between Scripture and the earnest, credulous reader. I ask mainly because they are the product of one indie author/reader, not some denominational press, and because they are an investment in the stuff that makes up the foundation of western civilization itself, which you and your readers well know is very much under attack and has been for a long time. Tolkein, Lewis, the Inklings, and so many other greats took Scripture as their Ur-source, so I thought, in that spirit, I would float this series in your direction. If it does not square with your aim for this series of promos, I will certainly understand; but perhaps it might also inspire some of your aspiring authors. With every good wish, “Eliot Young”
amazon.com/author/eliotyoung
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Send them to the book promo address. It’s in no way restricted to fiction.
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It’s interesting to look at the staff Leonid Gruzinsky put together during his time as commander of 40th Army. Within the political constraints of the Soviet Army, he did an astonishing job of selecting men who would complement one another’s strengths as well as be strong where others — including himself — were weak.
Take for instance his choice of Vasili Geilar, who had a legal education and would subsequently go on to become a senior military jurist — balancing Gruzinsky’s own background in the technical side of warfighting, with the equivalent of a BS and MS in mechanical engineering. But as a Latvian, Geilar also brought a more stolid and unflappable personality to a command headed by a hot-blooded Georgian.
Perhaps history might have gone differently had Geilar accompanied his boss on that fateful trip to confront Maximov, but on that day Geilar remained in Kabul, dealing with matters of a political nature.
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