Book Promo And Vignettes By Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

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, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. By clicking through and buying (anything book-related, 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. Remember though all of these submissions are from people willing to be associated with this blog. So if you’re trying to buy from people who don’t hate you, this is a good place to start.– SAH

FIRST OF ALL WITH A THANK YOU TO DOC N, FOR BEING A GOOD SPORT ABOUT MY USING ONE OF HIS COMICS AS A MEME: His webcomic. And his scifi story arc.

FROM SARAH HOYT’S INSUFFERABLE SELF PROMOTION: Witch’s Daughter.

Some letters come from the living. Some come from the dead. This one comes with a formula that turns a rowboat into a miracle.

Seventeen-year-old Lord Michael Ainsling — youngest brother of the Duke of Darkwater, builder of mechanical marvels, survivor of fairyland — receives a letter from a man sixteen years dead. The inventor Tristram Blakley has not perished; he has been imprisoned by his own genius and begs the one mind in all of Avalon brilliant enough to understand his work to set him free. All Michael has to do is find seven missing brothers first and walk a magical path..

Fifteen-year-old Albinia Blakley has spent her whole life under her mother’s iron thumb — and her mother is a witch. The day Al finally escapes down a rope of knotted sheets, she lands in a world she doesn’t recognize, with no money, no magic kit, and no idea that the stranger who catches her is about to become her greatest ally.

Together, a girl with more secrets than she knows and a boy who builds machines that try to murder him must outwit a sorceress, navigate the treacherous courts of Fairyland, and unravel an enchantment years in the making — before a family is lost for good.

Witch’s Daughter is a gaslamp fantasy brimming with wit, warmth, and wonder, for readers who love their magic wrapped in velvet and their adventures served with morning tea.

FROM ALMA T. C. BOYKIN: The Bard’s Curse: Bard’s Song Book One

In a world where words are power, a bard’s curse weighs heavy on those who draw his wrath.

Tuathal, master bard and prince of two realms, journeys north to his half-brother’s court. When Pyder of the Ford breaks the laws of hospitality, Tuathal’s satire brings ruin in its wake. But more than just righteous anger moves over field and forest. What began as an insult reveals far darker things moving in the realm Fiachta NoDomnail, low king of the Dunalaid.

A wandering bard and prince, Tuathal faces a war that will burn down all that his kindred have built. To stop it and lift a bard’s curse may cost more than he is willing to pay.

Words have power, but darker powers than those of man also have a say.

FROM TALEENA SINCLAIR: A Death In Good Society: A John Recht Novel (John Recht Novels Book 1)

A Death in Good Society

A John Recht Mystery
by Taleena Sinclair

When the body of Maire Beaufort, society’s adored “Angel of Waldfeld,” is found propped against a canal wall in the city’s most fashionable quarter, her death is more than just a tragedy; it threatens to ignite a diplomatic crisis.

Captain John Recht, former intelligence officer, is summoned from retirement to investigate on the heels of burying his wife. What begins as a straightforward murder quickly unravels into a labyrinth of deception, ambition, and betrayal. Powerful families are at odds, the palace whispers of scandal, and the Angel is at the center of it all.

As John and his trusted allies pursue truth through the salons and alleyways of a city built on secrets, they discover that the crime is only the first move in a much larger game—one that could topple governments and destroy the beginnings of John’s new life.

Set in the richly imagined city of Waldfeld, John Recht must discover just who is responsible for A Death In Good Society.

For readers of Patrick O’Brian, C.J. Sansom, and Dorothy Sayers.

FROM ROSS HATHAWAY: The Mything Road: The Bureau of Imaginary Problems 2

Reality is held together by stories.
Someone just put them up for a vote.

Agent Mara Quill expected paperwork, containment protocols, and maybe a mildly haunted bridge.

Instead, she found a miniature golf course running a continent-spanning network of cryptids, myths, and living infrastructure—controlled by a windmill that requires her to vote on reality itself.

Each decision expands the system.
Each connection strengthens it.
Each story becomes part of something larger.

And it’s working.

Forests answer. Rivers align. Mountains approve. Creatures once dismissed as folklore take their place like they’ve been waiting for someone to start the meeting. Because they have.

Then something notices. The Devourer does not attack cities or armies.
It consumes structure. It erases meaning. It unravels the connections that make reality hold together.

And now it has found a network built entirely out of those connections.

Humanity’s response?

Deploy everything.

Ancient myths once carved into stone.
Legends whispered across generations.
Cryptids that refuse to be forgotten.

And, because this is still technically a government operation—Forms.

Thousands of them. Binding. Defining. Weaponized paperwork that can anchor reality just long enough to hold the line.

As interdimensional networks begin to connect, foreign agencies scramble, and something cold and ancient steps through to observe, Mara Quill realizes the truth:

This is not a new system.

This is not a new war.

This is something humanity has been building, defending, and remembering for longer than history admits.

The bridges are not roads. They are conversations.

And this one has just turned into a battlefield.

FROM ERIC W. COWPER: The Cough Is Loose (Bougie Apocalypse Book 1)

When the Cough starts dropping people in the streets, most folks panic.

Jackson “Jack” Harlan and his wife Raych make coffee.

Retired Army Sergeant Major Jack always knew something like this could happen. While society unravels overnight, he and Raych load the white 4Runner, fire up the Coleman stove, and stick to the plan: proper percolator coffee, hot ham and beans, and controlled violence when necessary.

Armed with enough guns and ammo for a small army and an ironclad commitment to not becoming savages, Jack and Raych fight their way out of the suburbs, pick up fellow survivors, and lay down the golden rule that will define their apocalypse:

“We shoot the Walkers… then we go back to the beans.”

A serialized military-flavored post-apocalyptic pulp story with World War Z realism, Zombieland humor, and stubborn civilization in the face of collapse. Because even when the dead start walking, breakfast doesn’t cook itself.

FROM DECLAN FINN: Cross Over (Honeymoon from Hell Book 4)

Amanda Colt and Marco Catalano’s original honeymoon has been extended by an all-expense paid trip to Rome. After fighting off vampires, wendigos, elves, necromancers and mad scientists, the Vatican Ninjas have decided to add to their training.

There is one other students will cross their path: NYPD Detective Thomas Nolan. He has had his own share of nightmare encounters with the forces of darkness.

But devilish things are afoot in Rome. Noises are coming from the catacombs. A film crew is afoul with monsters.

When these three cross over to join forces, they just have to make certain they’re not going to cross over for good.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Soul Inheritance

Fresh out of college, Evelyn Alexander’s first order of business was finding a place to live. One she could afford on her small inheritance before her job started. None of the local rental agencies had anything in her price range, but…she found a small Victorian house for sale, the only one mostly untouched in a decaying neighborhood of subdivided rental houses.

Complete with a ghost. A very attractive ghost. A very attractive ghost with a strong dislike of the idea of anyone changing his house. So, of course, she bought it. A cranky ghost for a roommate was still a better option than the tiny studio with criminal neighbors.

Between working to restore her new house, embezzlement at work and a murder next door, Evelyn has her hands full. As she works to get on her feet as a productive adult (and not fall in love with a ghost she can’t have), the problems start to snowball. And it’s only compounded by learning that her house has far more secrets than just a single, cranky (attractive) ghost…

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: She Dreams Day and Night

Nancy White they called her, a good, solid name for a troubled girl. But she knew her father had called her by another name, before he disappeared through the gate into another world of strange stars and stranger moons. No matter how hard the staff of Hildred House try to force her to forget, she remembers. And longs to reopen the gate, to rejoin her father on that alien shore where cloud-waves break.

FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Parcel On Wren Street: and Other Cases of Richard Fairchild (The Aurigan Conflict)

Commander Richard Fairchild thought retirement would be peaceful.

After a distinguished career as a fighter pilot in the Anglo Fleet, a war injury has left him grounded and living quietly with his sister Margaret. Quietly, however, is not the same thing as peacefully.

When a parcel addressed to another man arrives at the Fairchild residence, Richard notices several small irregularities.

Before the package can be returned, the intended recipient is murdered. What begins as a simple curiosity soon develops into a far-reaching investigation involving secret courier routes, hidden communications, and enemy agents operating throughout the region.

Across twelve interconnected adventures, Richard Fairchild and his companions uncover:
• A mysterious parcel containing hidden star coordinates
• A woman using false identities to gather intelligence
• Secret transmitters concealed in an abandoned manor
• A murder among former military aviators
• Smuggling operations hidden behind legitimate commerce
• Coded musical performances used for espionage
• A passenger who vanished from a starliner without a trace
• The mastermind behind an extensive spy network

Assisted by his practical sister Margaret, the capable Dr. Alice Merriweather, and the increasingly tolerant Inspector Geoffrey Pritchard, Fairchild finds himself drawn into mystery after mystery as clues slowly reveal a larger conspiracy.
Written in the tradition of classic detective fiction, The Parcel on Wren Street and Other Cases of Richard Fairchild combines fair-play mysteries, memorable characters, gentle humor, and science-fiction adventure into a series of puzzles where observation matters more than violence and intelligence proves more valuable than force.

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 to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: FLAG

DAY FIVE OF ACCORDING TO HOYT’S ANNUAL FUNDRAISER!

This blog is running its annual fundraising drive, so that I can quiet the voices in my head that tell me I might as well do macrame or perhaps take an interest in tiddly winks. (Also because Jerry Pournelle tried to convince me to do this for years, and yeah, I miss him.)

There is a Give Send Go fundraiser for this specific fundraiser set up. Here is a Paypal Me Link if you prefer that. (Yes, I know. Paypal, but for now, they’re behaving.) If you have a monthly donation setup to the permanent Give Send Go, that is still working and thank you! There are also two substacks you can subscribe to. One is on the side bar of the blog, the other is supposed to be a newsletter, as well as giving you chapters of the current work in progress if you become a paid subscriber. It takes cards. For snail mail: Sarah Hoyt 304 S Jones Blvd #6771 Las Vegas, NV 89107

IF YOU WANT THE FULL SPIEL AND EXPLANATION IT’S HERE: Toss A Coin To Your Blogger, Oh Readers of Plenty

39 thoughts on “Book Promo And Vignettes By Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike”

    1. Austin was doing well. He was in second, coming into the home stretch, but his competitor’s stallions were beginning to flag as he knew they would. Theo had pushed them too hard early and he just had to push a little more and the race- and glory winning it entailed- would all be his.

      Like

  2. I see you are bat at it.

    Like birdwatchers get Silhouette Warblers and Little Brown Birds, bat-watchers get a lot of Little Brown Bats.

    And if you don’t put up your flag on time, you flagellate.

    Liked by 2 people

  3. Remember, o Readers, that you can be FORCE MULTIPLIERS!

    After you read books, you can rate and review them!

    Even short reviews are of aid to the writer, because sheer mass helps. (And if you really can’t review, still rate.)

    Liked by 1 person

  4. She hurried toward the room.

    Lord Thomas started to move toward her. She did not let her speed flag, but he stepped between her and the door.

    “My lady! So glad I am that I found you.” He bowed deeply.

    Mockery, thought Clara. In a man who greatly outranked her.

    Like

  5. Easy … easy … gotta watch those gimbal rates. If that LOCK flag drops, I’m done for.

    I fought the controls as the ancient craft spun chaotically. Damn corrosive RCS props, I cursed silently. A hydrazine line must have burst and even now was still spewing decades-old propellant into space, otherwise I should have had this pig straight and level by now.

    This is the last time I hijack a museum piece, regardless the fee. What’s money to a dead man?

    Liked by 2 people

  6. The cover on the Cough is Loose sets off a cringe/red flag. Why does she have her finger in the bang-switch guard without pointing the muzzle at what she wishes to destroy?

    /Colonel Cooper hat off.

    If a young cat is a kitten, is a young bat a bitten?

    Liked by 1 person

    2. “If a young cat is a kitten, is a young bat a bitten?”

      Young bats are employed on cargo ships to close the hatches to the holds. They move in groups to position large rolls of quilted fluffy covers over them. As a sealant they apply a mixture of flour, milk and eggs, and they settle the coating with large wooden sports clubs.

      Yes, the baby bats beat battered batts with bats to batten the hatches.

      Liked by 5 people

          1. In a desultory way I have been trying to re-lyric the March of Cambreadth to March of Carp Breath

            …

            “How many of them can we make fry?”

            Like

            1. Now that I look at again, it’s a little vignette for the day

              Many people are familiar with the March of Cambreath, a stirring, driving song filled with martial images. It is, of course, of modern, 20th Century origin.

              Or, at least those lyrics are.

              There is a branch of social science called “ethnography” and there are many collections of folklore and ‘traditional’ music those researchers have accumulated. The Louisiana Museum of Natural History at Louisiana State University has such an ethnographic collection. In the 1920s and 1930s, academic visitors to the backwoods and bayous with ‘wire recorders’ heard and preserved music much older, and at least one of them brought back a spool with what seems the identical tune and rhythm of the March.

              Notes left by the collector, an “L. Dogger’, suggest the tune was better known in the 1800s, according to the player/performers of the recording, who learned the song from their grandparents. The occasion of this recording was a noon meal on a Sunday, in April 1922, attended by a large family and some guests.

              Single microphone recording with 1920s technology was not particularly good, and the wire spool had deteriorated with age. Very careful restoration of the wire in 1978 and re-recording yielded two verses of the old tune; the lyrics, as best as can be determined, are reproduced below.

              Lunch of Carp Breath

              Wet scales flash, cleaver swing

              Gutting fish is our big thing

              Fish boats troll with shiny lures

              Stupid carp pulled onto shore

              Creole sauce and remoulade

              Carp don’t taste a bit like cod!

              Heat the oil with flame so high

              How many of them can we make fry?

              Take fish orders, loud and bold

              Eat your fries before they’re cold!

              Skip hush puppies, hate that slop

              Running servers never stop.

              PBR in cans that clank

              Mud-fish, carp-fish, swamp so dank!

              Flinging carp-fish through the sky

              How many of them can we make fry?

              Liked by 1 person

    3. Because the clankers can imitate but they can’t understand. And, having seen many images in that style, I recognize the style of that cover as being produced by a clanker. (I think Midjourney but don’t actually know). So the clanker doesn’t actually know when a gun should or should not have a finger on the trigger, it just knows that guns in images it has seen usually have fingers on triggers, so that’s what it imitates.

      (If I’m wrong and it was hand-drawn, then that drawing style is one that the clankers have learned to reproduce really, REALLY well).

      Like

      1. Aye, slightly more forgivable if it’s a clanker cover.

        One wonders if the clankers can be taught The Four Rules. (Also noting that the lady has her eyes on her man, not downrange.)

        “I shot the server, but I didn’t shoot the coffee pot.”

        Like

  7. I kicked off the process to work my way through the latest dataset. Small this time, only two hundred and twenty billion sample records from the last orbit, since more of that pass happened to be over water. I had my query humming along in background, set to flag anything really weird for review, as I scrubbed the intake queue QA scan for the next batch, when the flagged results file monitor process pinged. And then it pinged again, and kept pinging, sounding like an old trolly car from the San Francisco Historical Reconstruction Museum down on the surface with an especially enthusiastic reenactment docent on the bell. Then it accelerated, sounding like an old comm… what was it they were they called… a telephone ringer. I’d been fascinated by the old hardwired comms system the last time I’d visited the museum built over the wipe scar that had been the City by the Bay before the Vosh dropped by Earth fifty years ago.

    Flagged results didn’t usually cluster like that. I opened the results and scanned. Okay, that was weird. Quantum spun tachyons? From…California? More specifically, a fair distance under California?

    Okay, time to get more human eyeballs on this. I opened a call window.

    ”Hey, Sarah, got a sec?”

    Liked by 1 person

  8. “Okay Doctor can you tell me what happened and how the USA mostly escaped destruction” General Petersen asked.
    “As far as we can tell sir, all the particulates from all the fireworks being fired off in the Patriotic areas of America neutralized their weapons, hell, you could knock one of their ships down with a waved Flag” Dr. Hamilton replied.
    “Now what?” General Petersen asked.
    “Give us twenty four hours and we’ll have their ships figured out, fighter pilots can’t wait to start shooting them down with their own technology, it was just their bad luck to attack us on the fourth of July” Dr. Hamilton amusingly replied.

    Liked by 3 people

  9. The Earth Union flag that hung in government offices throughout Epsilon Colony was divided in half horizontally: blue on top and green below. Rooted on the left edge was a semicircular field representing the sun. The whole thing was pennant shaped, like the flag of the historic state of Ohio.

    Like

  10. Earth historians write that the flag design was developed over the course of a few years, amateur and professional proposals coming from all over the world. While it was never stated officially, historians agree that the design principals were: Nothing too schizoid-looking, and easy for schoolchildren to draw with crayons.

    Like

  11. Allie finally flagged down a passing vehicle — one of those flitters the Kitties used in the habitable zone of Horse-eye. It settled onto the ground and two people climbed out: a tuxedo tom Kitty and a member of the hyena-like Haherei.

    The Kitty looked directly at her, his pupils wide in the dim light of Cool Spot. “You do realize you’re out past curfew.”

    Allie’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “Sorry. I completely lost track of the time.” She held up her phone, its screen blank since the battery had died. “Then my scooter gave out on me.” She waved back to the broken-down vehicle.

    The Haherei bared her teeth, and the Kitty extended a paw in a gesture of restraint. Allie couldn’t follow the rapid-fire Chonguri, but she could pick out a few words here and there. From the sound of it, the Haherei wanted the Yumann made an example of, and the Kitty was telling her that this this was not a world of Scruffed troublemakers, but of volunteers, and the Yumann were still not used to living on a tidally-locked world where the sun never set.

    By the set of her ears the Haherei didn’t look overly happy about it. But she gestured for Allie to climb in and strap herself into the jumpseat behind their seats.

    At least she was now on her way home. She could go back and retrieve her scooter when curfew lifted the next “morning,” in a time system based on the diurnal cycle of the Kitties’ homeworld, not Earth.

    Like

  12. They hung flags from the halls, and if she could not read the colors in the fire, she knew that they were signals of dire events.

    Honor shifted. She didn’t know that the todo stemmed from the way Regulus and Susan have vanished.

    Which brought up the hollow thought that it might be the way she had. Both Regulus and Susan had spoken of it.

    Edur asked things in a low voice, and Susan shifted the images about swiftly. Ava soon sat back, annoyed, unable to read them, and the other children looked bewildered. Edur stared intently into the fire.

    Like

  13. About that time the Appalachian Rednecks fought the Sky gods…

    ‘Twas the night of high holy days, the fourth night of July. The storm was no ordinary little thing for these little mountains. Rain fell in sheets. Thunder cracked the sky. Lightening lit the night like the dark offended it.

    The officials of officialdom declared the festivities postponed. The official ones, that is. The ones that were at least partially taxpayer funded (not that we taxpayers had much quarrel with this particular use of our monies entrusted). These weren’t the only fireworks, however.

    Not by a long shot.

    A ways out of the town center, down the backroads and through the old dairy farm fields, back in the sticks as they say, another gathering occurred. The same kind of thing that happened there every year, year over year, since, well, since the place was settled. Early 1800s is the best guess but even that was no certainty. Records being what they were.

    The locals called it “knob hill.” A humble little rise full of old red oaks, maples, and a murthering lot of kudzu and Virginia creeper. No four wheel drive could make it through that forested mess. That takes tracks. Excavator has to cut the path every so often to keep the forest in check.

    As the storm gathered headway there they were. Drinking. Barbecuing. Cooking burgers and whatnot in the rain under tent covers and not. Storm? What’s a little rain to country folk that live and work in the weather? Kids run around in the fresh cut grass and mud.

    Then the lightning started hitting a ways down the holler. That first peal of thunder? That was a challenge.

    “Aw hell naw. That’s not a boom.”

    Out comes the fireworks. No plan. No union of intricate detail. Just a bunch of random guys and gals all with the same thought in their heads.

    It’s the fourth of July. There WILL be fireworks. Amen.

    And boy howdy there were. Every little kind you could shake a stick at. Warped and kind of fugly in the rain, some just fizzled. But these were rednecks that loved the boom. There’s ways to mitigate the problems that rain causes.

    On it went. For hours. More and more just. Kept. Coming. The longer the night went, the bigger the fireworks got. Some certain individuals may have passed out in the mud and had to be dragged to drier ground so they didn’t drown (allegedly). Little ‘uns tuckered out and got stuffed into tents and SUV’s to nap away as they could.

    The storm passed knob hill around 2237. There may or may not have been complaints filed from some unknown busybodies for noise and whatnot. But all that was left on knob hill a day later was a few tire tracks and the path the excavator cut through the forest. No trash. No drunks what got left behind in the fuss. These unnamed and unknowable persons cleaned up after themselves well.

    +There may or may not have been cannon involved in the battle with the Sky gods. There may or may not have been a call from the local airfield. There may or may not have been a few out-of-uniform and/or retirees around for mostly unneeded aid and whatnot, who may or may not have had tacit permissions to do so.

    But said rednecked definitely showed that storm who had the bigger booms.

    Like

    1. And, just to be clear, enthusiasms were most definitely not flagging for the persons involved, for nebulous and unknowable reasons as far as any officialdom may be concerned.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. Hmm, there was a red flag warning yesterday for 20 miles east of us, extending well into the eastern county. Dry lightning, they said. $SPOUSE told me to hook up the fire trailer “just in case”. I demurred, until I got a good look at the early afternoon sky. By just after dinner, it looked like said eastern county was going to get clobbered.

      To bed at 8:45. I was doing my log imitation when $SPOUSE woke me up at 9:00. “Thunder” she said. Actually, a bit of thunder and God’s own Lightning storm. The power turned itself off (not deliberately, according to The Power Company), and I hooked up the backup power to the CPAP machine. Then the rains started.

      Dry thunderstorms? Nope. Rain gauge said we had just under an inch of rain, quite impressive for a dry, droughtstricken area. Official average recipitation for $TINY_TOWN is 10″ a year. Too bad the weather doesn’t read reports. We had 3″ of rain in two days around Memorial Day, and now this. Labor day might be lit.

      The good news: no hail, andd the zucchini looked like they were thrilled. We’ll have to water in the greenhouse at lunchtime, but not outside.

      And yeah, there’s another red flag warning. As of yesterday, it’s “northern eastern county”. The tractor is staying attached to the fire trailer. Can’t count on wet thinderstorms.

      Liked by 1 person

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  16. As the flag is an important symbol to Usaians, I am prompted to take this opportunity to promote my new collection of Usaian-inspired jewelry at Wire, Wood, and Leather. You will find the link in my profile.

    Thank you, Sarah, for continuing to inspire not only the writers here but also all of us other creative types!

    Liked by 1 person

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