Book Promo
*Note these are books sent to us by readers/frequenters of this blog. Our bringing them to your attention does not imply that we’ve read them and/or endorse them, unless we specifically say so. As with all such purchases, we recommend you download a sample and make sure it’s to your taste. 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. I ALSO WISH TO REMIND OUR READERS THAT IF THEY WANT TO TIP THE BLOGGER WITHOUT SPENDING EXTRA MONEY, CLICKING TO AMAZON THROUGH ONE OF THE BOOK LINKS ON THE RIGHT, WILL GIVE US SOME AMOUNT OF MONEY FOR PURCHASES MADE IN THE NEXT 24HOURS, OR UNTIL YOU CLICK ANOTHER ASSOCIATE’S LINK. PLEASE CONSIDER CLICKING THROUGH ONE OF THOSE LINKS BEFORE SEARCHING FOR THAT SHED, BIG SCREEN TV, GAMING COMPUTER OR CONSERVATORY YOU WISH TO BUY. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*
FROM BLAKE SMITH: The Road to Stonberg (The Mercenary Series Book 1).
Gavril thought defeating a giant was the most interesting thing he’d do all week. But when a merchant caravan needs guards for the treacherous journey over the mountains to Stonberg, he can’t resist signing on, and learns that even peaceful men don’t always have peaceful lives.
FROM JULIE PASCAL: Too Late For Vengeance
Very few humans survive the Obsidian transformation that grants them the ability to pilot between the stars, the ability to slip between. Now both star pilots and humans are trapped on the surface of a primitive world, abandoned to an eternal quarantine. Human refugees and their descendants struggle to build a new civilization and a new life. The immortal star pilots become known as Obsidian Witches.
FROM ALMA T. C. BOYKIN: Learnedly Familiar: Familiar Tales Book Seventeen
Where do you file a Missing Meister Report?
Something is moving. Arthur Saldovado, Lelia, and André defeated ancient evil, but mysteries remain. And worse – Arthur’s name-sake is learning how to drive! Who needs abyssal creatures when you have teenagers, school-yard spats, and retail woes to worry about? Certainly not Lelia Chan Lestrang.
When André’s mentor disappears, Lelia braces for the worst. Trouble’s coming, as bad perhaps as the evil that drew her and André together. But she has a few surprises of her own now, including allies in very strange places. With very strange senses of humor.
Return to a Familiar world, full of adventure, bad puns, dark music, magic, shedding lemurs, and domestic chaos.
FROM P. L. KENNY: Havisham’s Collection: A Short Story.
It started with a mermaid.
When a very ordinary family finds a mermaid in the street, their lives take a turn for the extraordinary. A humorous fantasy.Also includes an excerpt from the supernatural thriller The Demon Ring of Lilitu.
FROM SCOTT SLACK: Closing Time, Last Call
When Corporal Frandsen’s marine battalion was tasked with retaking a space station from enemy forces, he expected a hard fight. What he got was a fight for his life with a time-limit that could kill his entire battalion. What is an enemy willing to risk to win a battle at any cost? Everything.
This is a short story that is currently stand-alone.
FROM D. SCOTT JOHNSON: Death’s Harvest (Gemini Gambit Book 4).
He ran from her, and was never seen again.
Will disappeared through the portal, and they have no way to get him back.
That was not how the story would end.
Kim has to find him, but the portal is destroyed and nobody knows how to build a new one. They have to go back to basics by experimenting with dimensions, with physics…
With her.
Because, somehow, Kim’s special abilities are tied into the technology that created the portal. Mike has theories she doesn’t trust. Tonya has ideas she doesn’t understand. Spencer has tech that’s held together with bailing wire and duct tape. But Kim doesn’t have a choice. They have to get Will back.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the galaxy, a brand-new D-ship pilot is waiting anxiously for her captain to return.
FROM HOLLY LEROY: Hostile Earth.
Terra Vonn is fighting to survive in a destroyed world, surrounded by unspeakable horror . . . and things are about to get much worse. After witnessing the vicious murder of her mother, Terra has a singular focus—exacting revenge on the killers. But before she can complete her plans, savagery intervenes and she is cast alone into a brutal post-apocalyptic world. As she trails the men south through a land filled with cannibalistic criminals, slave traders, and lunatics, the hunter becomes the hunted. Terra quickly learns that she is neither as tough nor as brave as she thinks she is. Worse, she may be the only one who stands between what little remains of civilization and destruction
FROM BILL PESCHELL: Career Indie Author: Tell Your Stories and Build a Business That Will Last a Lifetime.
As a storyteller, you know a lot about developing your plot, creating characters, and editing your work. But do you know how to protect your copyright, record your income and expenses, the risks and rewards between “going wide” and sticking with Kindle Unlimited, and how to market your work? Have you thought about what tasks you should outsource and what you can do in-house?
Running your own business successfully means understanding the business mindset, where cash flow is the life blood and decisions you make at the start of your career will affect everything that follows.
“Career Indie Author” charts the landscape of indie publishing in the 21st century, where you set the rules and choose your path to publishing.
FROM ASIAPAC AND DANNY JALIL: Lieutenant Adnan and The Last Regiment.
Lieutenant Adnan and The Last Regiment / Illustrated by Zaki Ragman / Written by Danny Jalil / History of Singapore 1942 Japanese Invasion The Battle of Bukit Chandu Paperback ISBN 9789812297020 / 978-9812297020 Publisher: Asiapac Printed in Singapore 118 Pages Lieutenant Adnan bin Saidi was a man who fought valiantly to defend Singapore during the Japanese invasion in February 1942. He, along with the rest of the Malay Regiment, battled the Japanese soldiers on Bukit Chandu. These great men were Singapore’s last defense and fought bravely to the end, despite being captured, and even tortured. Narrated by the son of Lieutenant Adnan’s son, Mokhtar, this comic book tells the story of Lieutenant Adnan’s life – not only depicting the infamous Battle of Bukit Chandu, but also the events before the critical battle and its repercussions thereafter. Through this book, readers would gain a deeper insight into Lieutenant Adnan’s admirable character, as they will be given a glimpse of who he was, beyond his role as a soldier: a husband and father.
FROM ODESSA MOON: The Bride from Dairapaska (The Steppes of Mars Book 1).
On a terraformed Mars, young Debbie Miller was sent far from her rural village as part of a marriage compact between the rulers of two demesnes. A peasant who knew only obedience, she accepted her duty to bear her husband’s children and work alongside him. But when they were sent to build a village in a barren patch of nowhere, her abusive husband forces her to take action. She flees with her children and their dog into the vast open steppes where dying was preferable to life with him.
Debbie only wanted to escape, but her encounter with the Steppes Riders, and especially Yannick of Kenyatta, unwittingly ignites changes that attract the attention of Mars’ ruling families. Left to her own resources, Debbie must adapt to her new life and figure out how to defend her adopted people.
The Steppes of Mars series imagines a transformed world where a disaster on Earth decades ago cut off all contact with its wealth and resources. Experience a Mars where its genetically modified inhabitants have developed their own cultures, beliefs, and religions. A semi-feudal world where ruling families control vast demesnes under a central government at Barsoom. A world of limited resources where train travel is possible but cars and planes are not. A world of free-cities — open and domed — villages, vast fields and steppes, and people banding together to survive and thrive in this harsh new world.
FROM C.V. WALTER: The Alien’s Accidental Bride (Alien Brides Book 1).
Molly was no stranger to life’s little detours. After the last upheaval, she left her family’s law firm to become a maintenance technician on the Space Station Bradbury 12. When an accident knocks her off her feet, she’s going to have to draw on all her resilience to get back up. First, though, she’s going to have to figure out how to talk to the big, blue alien trying to help her.
There wasn’t supposed to be a space station where Mintonar’s ship emerged from the galactic bridge. As far as they knew, there wasn’t supposed to be intelligent life on the planet, either. Proof of how wrong they were is laying in his Medical Bay and it’s his job to save her. When he touches her, his life turns upside down and his mission suddenly includes figuring out why everything inside him insists she’s his mate. And convincing her of the same thing, especially when they don’t even speak the same language.
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: NARROW