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 BETH HOMICZ: Some Guy Wants to Buy the Fourth of July: A rollicking, lighthearted, timeless story for Americans of all ages
SOME THINGS SHOULD NEVER BE BOUGHT — OR SOLD.
When ten-year-old Allie Campion wins a finalist slot in the Friendly Family Freedom Franks national Fourth of July essay contest, she and her dad, Dan, depart their small Virginia town, embarking upon a zany whirlwind adventure in the nation’s capital. During their week in Washington, Allie and her spirited fellow finalists discover a conspiracy of crony corruption in high places, and – inspired in part by a curmudgeonly American bald eagle – gallantly set about revealing the truth and righting the wrongs, all while navigating betrayal, defamation, and their own growing desire for independence.
Intelligently and charmingly written by a former licensed D.C. tour guide, Some Guy Wants to Buy the Fourth of July™ offers readers a heartwarming, wholesome, laugh-out-loud tale of the indefatigable American spirit.
“A bedazzling book! A fun read for all freedom-lovers… Former D.C. tour guide, Beth Homicz, takes readers on a rousing ‘tour’ of the capital that includes political chicanery, vile villains, an eloquent eagle, and some very smart, determined children.”
— Claire Wolfe, author of Hardyville Tales and other books
Children’s / Middle Grades / Young Adult
American patriotic adventure fiction
Suitable for independent reading by ages 8 and up. Family-friendly, educational, enjoyable entertainment.
Highly recommended for helping young readers to build vocabulary and civic knowledge.
FROM AMANDA S. GREEN WRITING AS ELLIE FERGUSON: Witchstorm Rising (Eerie Side of the Tracks Book 6)
For generations, Mossy Creek was a haven where Others, people with “special” talents, and Normals lived in peacefully. Unknown to most, trouble brewed just under the surface and is now about to erupt. Outside forces are determined to destroy the town in a vengeful plot that goes back generations. The only thing that might save Mossy Creek and those living there are the town’s “wayward children”.
Over the last few years, Annie Caldwell, Meg Grissom, and Jax Powell have all returned, facing down their personal demons and rising to the challenge to protect their town and loved ones. Now the storm clouds once again gather. Trouble from the past returns. Trouble the town isn’t ready for. Trouble that is determined to destroy the Others and the town they love.
Shay Griffin is the last of the town’s “wayward children”. She is also the one with the best reason not to return. Will she be able to put the demons of her past behind her and help protect her family, friends, and the town she still loves despite everything that happened? Or will she turn her back on those who betrayed her?
FROM FRANK HOOD: Advance Guards
A young man and woman abandon a near-future Los Angeles that is so addicted to technology that human needs are met at the cost of everyone’s humanity. After 40 years in the wilderness that has been abandoned by the population, the family they raised returns to the city one by one to either revolutionize the dying city or be consumed by its seductive allure. Does all hope rest on their youngest son?
“Seth, everything I have, and everything I am, I now bequeath to you. Do you understand?”“Yes Father,” Samuel managed to stammer despite his father’s mistaking him for his eldest brother, the brother he had never met, the brother that had died before any of his siblings were even born, the brother that had never had the chance to grow up.
“Take care of your mother. She’s your responsibility now.”
FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Siege of Proxima Colony (The Proxima Chronicles Book 2)
The Siege of Proxima Colony
The dream of a new world has become a desperate fight for survival.
On Proxima Centauri, humanity’s fragile foothold is shattered when mysterious machines descend from the skies, laying waste to the colony’s domes and towers. With weapons useless against the invaders, the settlers are driven underground, forced to endure starvation, fear, and the creeping sense that hope itself is slipping away.
As leaders falter and factions divide, ordinary colonists must find the courage to endure. From desperate raids to haunting discoveries, their struggle reveals that Proxima is more than a hostile frontier—it may be the key to humanity’s survival, or its final grave.
Blending the tension of classic survival tales with the wonder of golden-age science fiction, The Siege of Proxima Colony is a gripping chronicle of resilience, sacrifice, and the strange partnership between humankind and an alien world.
Perfect for readers who enjoy Kim Stanley Robinson, Arthur C. Clarke, or The Expanse, this is science fiction with a human heart—where the true frontier is not the stars, but the courage to endure.
FROM VICTOR TANGO KILO: The Baddies
He joined the enemy to take them down from the inside. It’s not going great.
The Imperium of Greater Scorpius is brutal, relentless, and bent on galactic conquest. Their massive interstellar army, the Scorpion Horde, uses overwhelming force, bureaucratic ruthlessness, and a complete disregard for ergonomics.
Ogden “OK” Kevitch meant to join the rebellion and fight Imperial tyranny. Really, he did. But due to some bad decisions and misunderstandings, he joined the Imperial Horde instead. Assigned to food service, he’s slinging tuber-tots in the mess hall of a Scorpion Horde battle cruiser.Still a rebel at heart (but an engineer by nature), OK tries to sabotage the Horde from underneath a hairnet. Unfortunately, his efforts have a tendency to backfire—and accidentally make things better for the Horde and worse for the rebellion.
His latest scheme involves smuggling out the stolen brain of a dead rebel scientist. It’s risky, it’s stupid, and it just might be exactly what the Horde wants.
The Baddies is a darkly satirical military science fiction novel about failure, rebellion, and the quiet horror of being employee-of-the-month for the bad guys.
The Baddies and its companion novel, Hell Yeah! We’re the Baddies, explore the light side of the dark side—where one hapless food tech and one disgraced intelligence officer try to outmaneuver an empire built on cruelty, incompetence, and performance reviews. Together, they tell two distinct stories wrapped around the same set of events: a Rashomon-style exploration of different perspectives inside the Scorpion Imperium.
FROM MACKEY CHANDLER: A Sudden Departure
The Earth below is a house in disorder. The spacers increasingly just want to be left alone. They need less from Earth all the time so many don’t really care what they do down there on the Slum Ball, but what if improving technology made it easier for them to bring all their old factions and sects and rivalries among the stars? The three partners April, Jeff and Heather hope to beat them at that game and find a firm foothold out there before the Earthies arrive. The book is also laying out details leading up to the merge of the “April” series of books with the story of the “Family Law” series.
FROM MAX BRAND, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: Train’s Trust (Annotated): The classic pulp western adventure
Steve Train, gambler, adventurer, clever rogue, didn’t care much for work. But then he was offered a job with no work, but plenty of danger. The job: track down outlaw Jim Nair — and hand him a pile of money!
- This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction by indie author D. Jason Fleming giving historical and genre context to the novel.
FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: The Lion in Paradise
All Col. Dr. Ariela Rivers Wolff, M.D., Ph.D., USSFM – the Lion of God – wanted was a little piece of paradise to call her own.
Being stuck on a desert world – even if she was the CO of the premiere battalion of the 1st U.S. Space Force Marines that was based there – was not getting her any beach time. Mostly because, without an ocean, there’s really no beach at all.
But she’s got a fix for that problem.
Now, if only the academics studying the problem of terraforming the exile world of al-Saḥra’ would get out of her way . . .
. . . and if only the religious fanatics who want their planet left as a desert, despite all the water from the planet’s former oceans being accessible only a few miles down, will leave the terraforming project alone long enough to see the good it will bring them . . .
. . . then, the Lion would truly be in Paradise.
But even in paradise, black clouds – and black ships – can herald danger for the Lion, herself, and for her daughters as well.
FROM SARAH A. HOYT: No Man’s Land: Volume 1
Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.
On a lost colony world, mad geneticists thought they could eliminate inequality by making everyone hermaphrodite. They were wrong. Catastrophically wrong.
Now technology indistinguishable from magic courses through the veins of the inhabitants, making their barbaric civilization survivable—and Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Kayel Hayden, Viscount Webson, Envoy of the Star Empire—Skip to his friends— has just crash-landed through a time-space rift into the middle of it all.
Dodging assassins and plummeting from high windows was just the beginning. With a desperate king and an archmagician as his only allies, Scipio must outrun death itself while battling beasts, traitors, and infiltrators bent on finishing what the founders started: total destruction.
Two worlds. One chance. No time to lose.
Volume 1
The Ambassador Corps has rules: you cannot know everything, don’t get horizontal with the natives, don’t make promises you can’t keep.
They’re a lot harder to follow when assassins are hunting you, your barbarian allies could kill you for the wrong word, and death lurks around every corner.
The unwritten rule? Never identify with the natives.
Skip’s already broken that one.
Now he’s racing against time to save his new friends from slavery—or worse—while dodging energy blasts and political intrigue. One crash-landed diplomat. A world of deadly secrets. And absolutely no backup.
Some rules are meant to be broken. Others will get you killed.
FROM BLAKE SMITH: In Pursuit of Justice: A Novel of The Garia Cycle
When love sparks a war, can four hearts survive the flames?
Zara thought escaping to freedom with Téo was the end of her story. She was wrong—it was only the beginning.
Their forbidden love has ignited a war between two kingdoms, and now they’re refugees fighting for survival in a hostile land where every shadow could hide an assassin and every stranger might be the end.
Meanwhile, back in the marble halls of the East Morlans, Prince Hanri races against time to contain his father’s burning thirst for revenge before it consumes everything in its path. And in the glittering palace where whispers are weapons, Alia must navigate a maze of deadly rumors and half-truths to uncover the secrets that could save them all—or destroy everyone she loves.
With armies gathering and alliances crumbling, four young hearts must learn that sometimes the greatest battles aren’t fought with swords, but with courage, loyalty, and the unbreakable bonds of love.
In a world where kingdoms clash and hearts collide, who will you trust when everything falls apart?
War changes everything. But love? Love endures.
Perfect for readers who crave epic romance, political intrigue, and characters who will fight to the end for what they believe in.
FROM KAREN MEYERS: Broken Devices: A Lost Wizard’s Tale (The Chained Adept Book 3)
Book 3 of The Chained Adept
CHAINS WITHOUT WIZARDS AND A RISING COUNT OF THE DEAD.
The largest city in the world has just discovered its missing wizards. It seems the Kigali empire has ignited a panic that threatens internal ruin and the only chained wizard it knows that’s still alive is Penrys.
The living wizards and the dead are not her people, not unless she makes them so. All they have in common is a heavy chain and a dead past — the lives that were stolen from them are beyond recall.
What remains are unanswered questions about who made them this way. And why. And what Penrys plans to do to find out.
FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Other Side of Midnight
Life has been a nightmare for Mitya ever since he was arrested on trumped-up charges and exiled to Siberia. But this labor camp in the far north of Magadan Oblast hides a secret far more terrible than the merely human evils of the Great Terror. For the universe we know is not the only one, and there are places where it interpenetrates with universes where the laws of nature as we know them do not operate, where humanity has no place. Worlds inhabited by beings ancient and terrible, to whom humanity are slaves, playthings, food.
ALSO THE BASED BOOKSALE COMETH. IF YOU’RE A WRITER, CONSIDER PARTICIPATING: Based Book Sale.
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: WEIGH
According To Hoyt 
“Oh Weigh in the Manger!”
“Whose idea was it to get Fred to sing Christmas carols?”
“Don’t look at me! I didn’t ask him to sing!”
By the way, is “Advance Guards” by our Frank? I’ve purchased it.
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Click The Box!
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Yes, it’s by me. Hope you like it.
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We weighed anchor just before dawn, intending to get some fishing in before things got too hot. However, trouble dogged us the whole way. If it wasn’t the outboard motor, it was the sonar we used to detect schools of fish among the weeds on the bottom.
Wouldn’t you know, the only fish that were biting that morning were all too small to keep. After tossing the third or fourth catch back in, we were all pretty much done for the day.
Might as well find something to do ashore, preferably indoors, in air conditioning.
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“I almost hope they do,” said Jasper. “Imagine, forty-two nobles who do not come to the Crown Prince asking for things, and he does not have to weigh their merits and decide whether to bring it to the king’s attention.”
Augustus shook himself. “Nevermind them. The break is coming up.”
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…
“Aye,” Drummond answered. “There will be reports to write, men in offices who will weigh this night on their ledgers. They’ll measure barrels lost against convoys spared. They’ll call it success.”
Her lips curved faintly, though not in amusement. “And you?”
He looked into the fire. “I’ll call it necessity. Nothing more.”
…
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goo variety of books herer
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“Lt. I am not saying we shouldn’t respond to the attack” Staff Sergeant Thomas Collins started to say.
“Not respond, hell Sergeant we’re at risk of being overrun” 2nd Lt. Franks said in panic.
“All I am saying Lt. is we need to weigh are options” Staff Sergeant Collins replied.
“Okay, so what would you do Staff Sergeant?” 2nd Lt. Franks asked.
“Me, well I’d seek shelter right now because the Colonel is going to panic and call in the Artillery because of all the Lt’s panicking up and down the line” Staff Sergeant Collins advised.
“Sergeant have the men find shelter” Lt. Franks replied suddenly pale.
“Good choice sir” Staff Sergeant Collins replied, he had tried really hard to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
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All cargo battened down and all visitors ashore, Captain.
Very well, number one. Prepare for departure.
Aye, Sir. Sailing Master, put us out to sea.
Aye, Aye, Sir. Deck crew aloft! Helm stand by! Foc’sle, weigh anchor!
Weigh anchor, aye, Sir! . . . One thousand two hundred and seventy-six pounds, Sir!
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The thickness of the poison seemed to weigh on her like lead. Honor set her mouth and worked on. The miasma slowly dissolved, and yet that which was left seemed to reach toward her as she worked.
She worked on. Trying to not be distracted by the voices about her, and the beginning jubilation.
She felt none. Not until she collapsed, this case done, and asked, to be told that there was not another case like that.
Honor nodded. They could not easily do another one like that. She hoped.
“I need food. And rest. Then I can go on.”
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Constantly fluttering his hands at the airline agent, the surfer cried “You can’t charge me more for my 60 pound suitcase! I’m a Waver with a weigh waiver!”
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“You’re doing that wrong.”
Jenny looked up from pouring liquid into the right-hand pail. One gallon of water was 8 pounds so she had tared the balance scale with 8 one-pound blocks in the left-hand pail.
“Go away if you don’t like the way I weigh the whey!” she snarled.
50 words. ;-)
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Oh, goodie! Another “Eerie Side of the Tracks” novel Now I want to re-read the whole series! Thank you!
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“Argh! What kind of an idiot made this recipe! Twenty different ingredients and none of them measured with cups, tablespoons or teaspoons. Friggin’ book wants me to WEIGH everything? Guess that explains why the con artists sold me this stupid food scale. Let’s see, eight ounces of shredded red cabbage…”
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(Part 1/2)
“Okay, listen, we’re approaching the transition point, which means it’s about time for another installment of The Talk.” Susan Blake’s voice was loud enough for the job, and only just. “Because that means we’re about to switch from fusion rockets to proximity drive, and you-all deserve the summary briefing first.” Since I don’t want anyone going hyperbolic when I first mention a hundred gees of acceleration in the normal course of events…
“Does that mean you’re finally going to come clean about whatever Outie Magic anti-gravity drive you two used to spirit us away from Haven?” It was said straightforwardly, not accusingly; and Lt. Hardesty likely had little or no idea what it sounded like to someone not of the Empire.
“First of all,” countered Marianne Flammarion, “as you probably really do know, the planet is called Prince Samual’s World, not Haven. Second, it isn’t really quite anti-gravity… but I’ll let our resident engineering and physics genius explain all that.” (As much as the past few years had turned her once-sheltered Havener world inside out and upside down, there were a few things people ought to get right.) She looked back to Susan.
“And that, too, is part of The Talk. Only, another installment. Though I guess it’d’ve been too much to hope for, that you and our other refugees would be too distracted to notice we were sneaking efficiently away. But briefly, yes, you could call the Lightness drive a ‘proximity drive’ too, it’s like a repulsive artificial gravity only with limited range. Excuse me for not using the original Cantonese, mine’s a bit corroded by events.
“But, what I meant by ‘proximity drive’ — it turns out that near just about any Alderson Point, you can hook into the quintessence field that stars establish and makes the Drive work to go between them, and get a fair bit of usable thrust. Only in the few million kilometers around an active Alderson point and the very nearest part of its tramline, so it’s not at all any generally-usable thing; but it has its… charms.”
“All right, but this is almost too much. First, you don’t tell us you can use some sort of anti-gravity wiz to, more or less, just sort of float away from a nasty Outie invasion-occupation fleet, with ships almost a kilometer across. Now, you’re politely asking me to believe in some sort of semi-magical space-drive widget that only works near Alderson points.” Hardesty folded his arms, as if that would somehow underline his words.
Susan smiled. “And this sort of thing is how we’ve learned, over time in the few times we’ve ever explained any of this to non-Rim-Worlders, that we need to have The Talk first. So this sort of stuff doesn’t get in the way of doing important things like not getting captured or simply swept-up by the Star Ticks, um, I mean ‘Lords of the Starships.'” The little shudder that went through her wasn’t blatant, but it was also pretty clearly unconscious, like the briefly-unfocused look in her eyes.
“The Lightness drive — Anthony Beckett’s little Hong-Kong-centric contribution to our now centuries-covert technological base — dates from the Exodus years, right after the Alderson Drive was discovered and developed by the CoDominium Science and Technology Directorate. It’s how most of the few-dozen ships that ‘got loose’ during those first few chaotic decades, well, got away; you pair that with… something like a cold Langston Field, but not, and you can just ‘float away’ (as you say) looking as black as space itself. Given, of course, an awful lot of energy, usually as stored in quintessence cells.
“Then once you hit the Alderson point, you’re outta there. You can just keep going until you’ve outrun the CD, or the Empire, or else you’ve run out of deuterium or recyclables or… luck.” There was a certain look on her face, then, as if she understood what that end-of-hope feeling was.
“So, why didn’t that get discovered by the CoDominium? Or later by the Empires, First or Second? If all these people were running around, with this super-secret technology that you claim to have demonstrated for us leaving Hav, um, Prince Samual’s World in haste?” Hardesty, again.
“It’s not only governments that can keep a secret, Jackson. And I expect some sort of drop-dead date, by which you’re either gone or you just, I’d have to guess, burn the plans and settle down to either living with the lovely CD as it was, or else subverting it as much as you dare.” Andrew Killian’s voice was level, as befit someone who’d gone from intelligence analyst for Orleans to one for Haven to one for the new planetary Havener government. Facts don’t noticeably yield to passions, though he had those too, and shared them seldom or never these strange latter days.
“For that matter,” he continued, “I was one of those very many who ended up watching those half-mile-plus ships of theirs from a safe ways off, as they settled down through the air into the water. I’d say Susan’s ‘claim’ of some kind of shortish-range anti-gravity-like drive is pretty well and truly demonstrated, and by them not only by her and Marianne.”
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(Part 2/2)
Susan smiled as she chuckled. “Yes, though comparatively their version of the Lightness drive is crap. Like most of their slave-labor-made stuff; only when you have asteroidal resources adding to planetary ones, it does make up for a lot. How’s that old, old Soviet-era Party saying go, again? ‘Quantity has a quality all its own,’ or somesuchlike.
“Anyway, I was trying to discuss the Proximity Drive, quite recently invented by someone named Jack Gustafsson. Neat guy, really. You have to ‘anchor’ the thrust it makes in something, either the ‘engine’ it works through, itself, or the entire craft, or something particular. So if what you do is anchor the effect equally in the entire vehicle and all its contents, you don’t feel or measure any weight from it, since it acts on everything equally. Like gravity does.” She smiled, almost impishly.
“You don’t actually and strictly feel weight from gravity, standing on a planet’s surface; if you jumped off the dresser to the bed, you’d feel as if you were in free fall, because you are. Same for standing on the ground of some world; it’s the pushing upwards against free fall, to stay in the same place instead of falling free, that makes you feel weight.”
“What Susan is trying to say, while merrily dancing around Einstein’s old Principle of Equivalence, is that you can accelerate, possibly a lot, that specific way. And never once feel a thing.” Marianne looked back to her.
And Susan smiled, again, maybe a bit gratefully and ruefully. “What she said. And so we can accelerate or decelerate at somewhere around a hundred gravities, that way, and as Marianne said, never feel a thing. So very soon indeed, we will. We’ve been braking conservatively, now we’re about to really slam on the brakes hard, so by the time we hit the Point we’ll be going only about fifty kilometers a second. We can re-accelerate on the other side, too, using the same effect, and get a head-start on our quick little look-see outies-or-none run through the Makassar system.”
Hardesty’s eyes bugged out some. “Fifty! You’ll never make it through to the next system, no one can time it that well, no one could ever do that, not even the Moties.”
Killian smiled that soft quick smile of his. “You say this proximity drive only works near an Alderson Point. So does it follow that how well you can make it work also helps you detect how close you are? Because that sort of as-you-go mapping potentially could be, as they say, very useful indeed.”
Susan smiled. “Got it in one, Andrew. Also a part of this installment of The Talk. So, we’re going to come to this Point to fast-transit Makassar system from Point to Point pretty ‘hot’ and come out pretty ‘hot’ too, thanks to this nifty little proximity effect. Unless any bad-guys anywhere in Makassar system happen to notice us right at the Alderson Points we’re using, we’ll just fly through, black as space itself, beyond all notice except when we deploy the telescopes and get a look-see at Makassar and maybe a gas-giant or two there.” Smiled again, somewhat in relief.
“So, no one is terrified about ending up as strawberry jam on the deck plates? Because for very fundamental physics and engineering reasons, you can’t, not from our Prox Drive.” Susan’s fast sun-bright smile again. “You’d have to try hard to make that happen, and even if you did try you’d more likely just rip your Proximity Effect engines right off their mounts.”
For a few moments no one spoke. So far, so good, thought Susan.
Andrew Killian broke the silence. “So, assuming you’re able and willing to answer a pertinent but impertinent question, Lieutenant Hardesty of the Imperial Navy… what, exactly, are ‘Moteys’ when they’re up an’ dressed?”
(Based on some previous characters and setting… most of it not my own. Maybe doing even this much simply means I’m crazy, but then again… gateway writer.)
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