IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Over the last month a number of you sent me books for the promo which did NOT get included in the promo. And then sent me increasingly frantic/angry emails. Sorry, I was moving and the email was misbehaving. If I overlooked your book, please send again next week. Thank you- SAH.
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, 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
FROM KAL SPRIGGS: Courting Power: A Regency of Aeliana Romantic Fantasy Novel
Book one of a five part fantasy regency romance series.
Five daughters, one season, and fortunes, magic, and love at stake.
The five Priddington daughters have arrived for their Presentation, to win love and husbands in the Empire’s Capitol. Descended from a powerful bloodline, each of them presents a prize, where a perfect marriage will increase the power of the happy couple… and one misstep within Society can mean ruin.
Miss Patricia Priddington would not be surprised if one of her sisters were so fortunate. Only a rakish Prince seems to keep catching her when she falls. As love blooms, however, the Queen seems to oppose their budding romance, another would-be suitor is found dead, and it seems that the Prince is the prime suspect.
What is a proper noblewoman to do except get to the bottom of things, hopefully without bringing down scandal upon her and her sisters? Because while she is looking for a perfect match, others suspect that she is only courting power.
FROM PAM UPHOFF: Max Berezin Collection (Chronicles of the Fall Book 26)
Snapshots a character’s life.
One previously published short story, plus nine new stories that give brief glimpses of a budding Mentalist Lord as he survives ambitious relatives, brief romances, interesting assignments, and vacations . . . Balancing family duties and work while doing what’s right . . . even if it might not actually be legal . . .
FROM ALMA T. C. BOYKIN: Books, Barns, and Songs: Familiar Generations Book Twelve
Words have power. Books change lives, and songs bring healing. But words can also wound.
Return to River and Devon counties, and places farther afield, with characters both new and Familiar.
Claire Tainuit discovers that excitement doesn’t always stay in stories, or in the spell circle.
Simeon and Vladimir take on trouble … and memories.
A young Hunter and sorcerer labors to fit into two worlds.
Arthur Saldovado sorts books and wonders if the plots can get any worse. He shouldn’t tempt fate …
In a Familiar world, barn art carries power, books inspire magic, and some novels really are that bad.
Six short stories.
FROM DALE COZORT: Exchange: Book One of the Exchange Universe
It’s called Bear Country, an untamed alternate reality where humans never evolved, but saber-tooth tigers and suspiciously intelligent little green monkeys did. Random chunks of Bear Country are temporarily swapped—exchanged—with Earth, bringing a risk-averse, bubble-wrapped society unimagined threats, from giant bears to the hazards of unknown bacteria. They also bring opportunity for anyone brave enough—or crazy enough—to settle there.
Computer guru Sharon Mack prepares to evacuate when she finds out her town is about to be Exchanged . But when her crazed ex-husband kidnaps their autistic daughter, dragging her into Bear Country, Sharon has no choice but to go after them, find her daughter, and escape before the Exchange reverses, cutting her off from her own reality forever.
Flash floods and giant bears aren’t the most dangerous thing in this wild frontier. Bands of escaped convicts, with nothing left to lose, roam freely in a land with no laws but survival of the strongest. Then there’s enigmatic Leo West and the secretive Sister West cult, determined to claim Bear Country for their own. And there are those willing to kill to hide the true secrets of the Exchange.Exchange is the first book in the Exchange universe. The second is Devouring Wind, available now.
FROM LEE ECKHARDT: GLADIATOR’S LUCK: A Science Fiction Novel
Sixteen-year-old Komani is a gladiator, genetically engineered to be the perfect fighting machine, fast, tough, and strong. Gladatorial combat is illegal on most worlds, so Komani and his manager Jonan travel from solar system to another,, eking out a living and trying to stay one step head of the law. The future seems bleak until a master criminal hires them to help rob the treasure-planet Hylaea. Komani, eager to participate in the robbery, is completely unaware of what lies in store for him in the depths of Hylaea’s rainforest, where he will face hostile elements, a criminal double-cross, and the truth and his relationship with Jonan… Note: Barriel Takatura previously appeared in ‘Underworld’.
FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Gnawing the Bones of the City
Tikhon Grigoriev has a problem.
He’s a member of the civil police, but has come to the attention of the political police. In Stalin’s Soviet Union, that is a very dangerous situation. He’s hanging on by his fingernails in besieged Leningrad, and he has a family to think of.
Worse, he has reason to believe that something uncanny stalks the frozen ruin that is a besieged city in subarctic winter. But as a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he is not supposed to believe in the supernatural.
How can he keep his head in this impossible situation?
A short story.
Note: includes intense scenes that may be disturbing to some audiences. Reader discretion is advised.
FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: I’m the Beautiful But Evil Space Princess Who Rules A Galactic Empire But Really Wants To Leave People Ruthlessly Alone!: Volume 5
Imperial Princess Regnant Alice has lately discovered herself to be with child.
This doesn’t stop her usual grind of duties, of which she has also discovered quite the backlog since returning from her honeymoon with Prince Daniel. With the help of both Daniel and her private secretary Lady Candace, and of course that of her loyal maids, the Princess Regnant powers through audiences and public appearances and even the unending round of lavish soirées thrown by the rich and noble of Capital.
As always, though, her life is bound to have problems tossed into it…much like grenades. An ancient frigate appears in Capital space, from a sector a hundred thousand light years away, normally a 12-year one way trip. Of course they bring news of a problem. But their means of arrival may also spark the biggest war seen in the Galaxy since the Wars of the Dispersal…
The fifth volume of the BBESP light novel!
FROM BECKY JONES: Chaos and Disarray: A Collection of Short Stories
When you mix animals, magic, friends, and school… it can be quite chaotic at times.
A boy finds a hellcat on his back patio. An entire middle school is transported into that weird place between worlds. A wandering cowboy encounters more than he bargained for in the wilderness. A young man must prove to his djinn father that he is worthy of respect. Ten stories of friendship, growing up, and family make up this collection of unpublished and previously published stories.
FROM SUMMER GRAYLING: True Colours
Jan Van Der Vaart is a legend. The focus of his magical Talent is pain, and he’s spent years in the military, then as a mercenary, making terrorists, cartels, and governments fear him. Finally, he carved out a safe haven for other Talents, and tried to retire… until one last job, cracking a black lab snatching Talents off the streets, went sideways. He’s left staggering down a rainy coastal highway, thumb out and hoping he’ll catch a lift before the kill team realizes they missed…
Aurelia Brinati is on the run. Having escaped five years of hell as an unwilling lab rat, she has a stolen car and a plan to hide from pursuers by taking passage on a cargo ship headed anywhere else in the world. When she picks up a stray sailor headed the same way, she rapidly discovers she’s out of her depths… and safe in the heart of the storm.
The entire world fears him… except her. Powers are gathering to recapture Aurelia, but they’d best beware. Jan and his friends will do whatever it takes to keep her safe… whether it’s murder, mayhem, or last-minute shopping runs to find something called cream of tartar for her snickerdoodle cookies.
Protective Hero ✓ Hidden Magic ✓ He Falls First ✓ Found Family ✓ Runaway Heroine ✓ Psychic Powers ✓ Hurt/Comfort ✓ Damaged Heroine ✓ Touch-starved Hero ✓https://link.amazon/B0bfvFueo
FROM MICHAEL NICHOLS: Fatal Abstraction: Revolutionizing Strategy and Innovation for the Age of AI
In an era where AI is accelerating disruption and uncertainty, traditional business strategy is dangerously outdated. While innovation professionals adapt rapidly, many established organisations remain stuck in slow, mechanistic planning cycles. Fatal Abstraction argues that to survive, leaders must learn to govern at the level of uncertainty they face―rethinking how strategy is conceived, executed, and evolved.
Drawing on philosophy, mental models, and first hand experience with hundreds of ventures, author Michael Nichols offers a bold framework for mastering disruption. This timely work equips entrepreneurs, executives, and investors with the tools to navigate AI-driven change, build resilient ventures, and revolutionise strategic thinking in the modern age.
FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Day My Phone Got Hacked (Living as an Adult in the 21st Century Book 6)
At the International Cyber Defense Expo, thousands of hackers, defenders, security researchers, and technology companies gather for the annual competition known as the Gauntlet.
Daniel Mercer has been doing infrastructure engineering for thirty-five years.
He has watched punch cards give way to mainframes, mainframes give way to client-server systems, servers become virtual machines, and entire data centers migrate into the cloud. Now, surrounded by young hackers, AI security startups, zero-day hunters, and cryptocurrency enthusiasts, Mercer arrives with something that looks hopelessly out of place:
An old Android phone.
A battered wooden case.
A few blinking LEDs.
And a honeypot.The younger hackers laugh. They think they know exactly what they are looking at.
They are wrong.
FROM ELISE HYATT: A Fatal Stain (Daring Finds)
TABLE FOR HOMICIDE Some antiques have history. This one has a body count.
When furniture refinisher Dyce Dare picks up a bargain table at a garage sale, she expects the usual suspects: water rings, cheap veneer, and questionable taste in stain colors. What she doesn’t expect? Human blood hiding beneath layers of amateur polyurethane.
Now Dyce has questions. Inconvenient, potentially life-threatening questions. Whose blood decorated this dining set? Is the previous owner currently occupying a grave or just really bad at DIY first aid? And most pressingly—does the person responsible know she’s discovered their crimson calling card?
With her wedding to Cas Wolfe on the horizon, her son E insisting his imaginary llama named Ccelly can solve the case, and her friend Ben offering “help” that mostly involves creating more problems, Dyce’s plate is already full. But when strange incidents suggest someone is watching her workshop, she realizes she needs to find both victim and killer before she becomes the next stain on someone’s furniture.
A Fatal Stain – Sometimes what’s under the surface is murder.
(Note: No actual llamas were consulted during this investigation. Ccelly tried, but let’s be honest—imaginary camelids make terrible detectives.)
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: Muddle
“Nice little cage here Fred.”
“And you’re trapped inside it Sam. Somehow you muddle around and still escape my traps. Well, you’re not going to escape this time!”
“Muddle around? No, I just out think you and I have a little secret that you’ll never knew. Sadly, your attempts have gotten annoying so this is your last attempt and nobody will ever know what happened to you.”
“No way Sam… What! How did you get out of that cage?”
As Sam took his full form, he said “There’s no trap you could create that could hold a Dragon. Goodbye Fred.”.
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I usually try to come up with puns for this one. I can’t do better for “muddle” than Randall Garrett did in his Lord Darcy stories. In one of them, a rich nobleman dies. This was expected (he was sick, or old, I forget which) and his coffin has already been made — but when they go to bring the coffin to his castle for the burial, they discover that someone else is already inside it: the nobleman’s chief investigator. Whose dead body has been stripped naked and covered in blue paint.
The title of the story was, “The Muddle of the Woad”.
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An oldie and a goody.
There’s also a scene where a magical theoretican grouses about people following hedge witches who brew up foxglove tea for heart trouble and moldy bread for fevers instead of going to a reputable Healer.
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My mother-in-law was a doctor for decades, just retired last year. She has often mentioned that the problem with taking herbs for medication is controlling the dosage. This foxglove plant may have produced 50% more of the active effect than that foxglove plant a few meters away, because one of them was shaded by large tree branches and got less sun and rain, or there were soil variations, of any number of other reasons. In medications where you prescribe 250 mg to the patient, if they get 260 mg or 240 mg instead that’s not a big deal. In medications where the proper dosage is measured in micrograms, you really, really need to control exactly how much the patient is getting, and the natural variation in plants means you’d be as likely to poison the patient as cure them if you gave them the plant.
So for some things, herbal medicine is absolutely fine. But for some drugs, only use the laboratory-produced drug, because you’ll know the exact dose the patient is getting, as opposed to the natural source which can vary wildly in dosage: and for some plants, that variation can be deadly.
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And also you’re guaranteed contamination.
However, the right solution in Lord Darcy would be to take this stuff seriously so they could get pill form.
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Which Garrett implied, at least to us.
In another story the victim is a materialist (a psychically blind man who resented not being qualified for the priesthood) and Darcy suggests that society’s version of “modern scientists” study hismnotebooks because there might be valuable insights in them.
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“The mind of God may keep the stars in their courses, but if so, He has laws by which He abides.”
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in principle, fantasy world ‘its herbs man, herbs’ folks could have an unspecified magical or psionic power to calibrate the dosages
If the narrator does not know, people could still happen to have the super power.
I just personally do not believe that most fantasy herb healers that I have seen are cases where the authors have persuaded me that this is really plausible.
(The other issue is population densities, records integrity, and gross numbers of cases of whatever rare shit. I just do not buy in many cases that previous generations did all of the deductive puzzles correctly, and then passed down info with perfect accuracy to today. I’ve learned things about the telephone game that I didn’t know when I was in my teens and first reading the genre. )
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Yep. My son says the herbs work, but the dosage is difficult.
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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.)
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True Colors is worth reading, as a well constructed tale, crossing traditional genres, of solid characters living their lives in strange circumstances.
Elements of fantasy, adventure, drama, romance, good evil and shades of grey all combine to make a believable world for the characters to survive, grow, and thrive in.
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For those who like the tactical romance aspects of True Colours, other books exploring the same genre can be found by searching for Dorothy Grant. My favorite title: A Perfect Day, With Explosions.
Any similarities between these other stories and True Colours is sheerest coincidence. Unless it’s not. :)
(Have I sufficiently muddled things up?)
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“Your phone is on the charger, and the thermometer is right here. Take another dose of the pills, even if your temp is back to normal, and keep taking the pills until it is.”
“What would I do without you?” she asked.
“You’d muddle along miserably, but you’d get by.”
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Trying to keep her thoughts from growing too muddled, Clara accepted it with thanks.
Prince Aurelius gravely turned to Mistress Thyme.
“I do not know if you can make use of silver here.”
“I am able to break it,” she said gravely.
He nodded and gave her a small purse.
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“No, sir, it’s the mud season in this area of operations.” The trooper sergeant shook his head. His theoretically white armor was coated in thick brown mud, mostly dried but still wet and dripping up past the knee. “Everything is chest deep mud for hundreds of miles in every direction, well, until you get to the sea and that’s mostly mud this time of year inshore.”
”So, no resupply?”
”Oh something will get through, sir. They home right in on any antigravity signature just like we do, and it gets hammered by artillery right quick. But we have the fused-soil roads run up to fairly close, and in emergencies we can get some supply on stealthed one-way drone pods or even orbital drops from blockade runners. But on the plus side the Clankers are in pretty much the same supply boat, and they have more of a problem with the mud getting into their mechanisms than we do. There’s no way they can move forward against us with any mass, not during the mud.”
”So, sergeant, you are saying we’ll muddle through?”
The clone squinted at the new intel captain. “That joke was old a long time ago on this front, sir. You might consider not using it where line troopers can hear you. You probably don’t want a reputation as a dad joke intel puke. Sir.”
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Bethna sighed and checked the recipe again. “Take the first five ingredients and crush them together in a mortar and pestle, for one minute, moving them widdershins, then transfer them to a glass jar and muddle them together with a splash of gin.” It didn’t make sense. Was this Potions or Bartending? Or had she gotten her notes mixed up again.
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Maybe potions and bartending intersect more than we think!
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In small towns, it would be wise to generalize.
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So the super intelligence force.
I think this has to be understood on two to four time scales. The likely ones are until the election, and to sync with project Meridan for procurement stuffs after the new year. They may be preparing for operations as late as 2029, but I think those are very happy path prospects. Anyway, this does seem aimed at economic and military possibilities during a very uncertain period of however long, but Trump and Vance are not likely to be rigidly following a cookie cutter established now.
And of course the Democrats would be inclined to either dump everything or to follow the Iran/CCP agenda.
Anyway, Quadrumvirate organization. DNI, FTC head, a DoD tech bro, and OPM.
But it also reports to Trump’s Chief of Staff, so while senior, it is also not expected to be super critical.
My feeling is that the goal that policy will be subordinated to will be military, with the other two positions being about policy coordination. But, that is maybe too convention bound and personal interest on my part.
He could have listed things in terms of the priorities he sees, and so it could be the intel/sabotage risk first, then optimal market policy for US interests, then military applications.
I do not think this is meant to be a decisive fast organization, and I think one of Trump’s key decisions was to set the terms for the marketing purposes. He is calling something super intelligence, not following in the footsteps of those bay area corporations.
So this could be a deliberate muddle, to manage a set of problems that is more than one muddle, whose correct theoretical answers are not known.
Okay, I think I actually do have a few of the correct answers, but a) that does not mean those are accessible or persuasive to others b) confidence that I am correct on such a controversial position should decrease sharply the more of an official voice that I have in such things. Most of my internet rando chops on AI depend on not having anyone with a financial interest in saying that I am correct.
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OPM would be really useful for federal employment of machine persons, if machine persons could exist.
This is Trump calling the bluff of the AI vatniks, and refusing to fold and refusing to give them everything that they have demanded.
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Having muddled thru the day as is my current pattern, it was a total delight at the end of it to find FOUR books to add to my KU wish list! Thank you all! (It would have been five but I own the Dyce Dare books already and love them!)
***********************
And Bingo – 50 words!!
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I am still hoping to bring two new ones out this year. The move has nuked my schedule.
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Cari finally learned to relax, to do nothing at the beach resort her girlfriends had reserved. She had to admit she needed the quiet after last week’s conference. What a hopeless muddle! Her counterpart on the academic panel rolled his eyes whenever Cari spoke; she really wanted to sock him!
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It got worse when the fellow opened his mouth. “I simply can’t fathom,” he said, with dramatic exasperation, “how you, an elf, could possibly comprehend, much less explain, the nuances associated with the topic you presume to cover here.” He looked around as if expecting everyone to agree with him
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Cari was glad her Max wasn’t there to hear that, because Max would have knocked the fellow into next week. Cari might have momentarily appreciated the gesture, but this was her battle. “Would you care to elaborate, with citations, on what I’m missing?” she said, with her sweetest possible smile.
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Of course, the fellow was in no wise able to follow up his attempt at intimidation. Cari watched him grow florid, as strands of his combover started popping up in random directions. At the next table, Dr. Swenson, the conference chair, whom Cari had known for years, stifled a chuckle.
NOTE: I’ve never actually attended an academic conference, but have, like many of you, attended endless meetings. I figure both are afflicted with individuals who delight in their own voices and have never been told that while they’re entitled to their opinions, said opinions might actually be worthless.
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I learned early on that group projects were Bad News. I’ve lost track of how many times I ended up doing everybody’s work because the slackers knew I couldn’t afford a bad grade.
Given how independent the Kitties are, I’d figured they wouldn’t be so into group projects. And while they didn’t do the sort I always hated, where everybody contributes to a single presentation for a collective grade, I soon discovered that they expected us to help each other.
Except for one big problem. Whenever I actually needed help, all the promises turned into vaporware. Everyone had something else they had to do, leaving me to muddle along as best I could.
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