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

ON SALE RIGHT NOW: (A new section for this time period, and after when a lot of people have a lot of things for sale)

(Oh, and if you have things on sale, why haven’t you sent them in to be promoted? Allergy to money? Chafing at the thought of lucre? Hives at the idea of wealth?)

YES THE FIRST TWO ARE ABOVE IN THE PERMA PINNED POST, BUT SOME PEOPLE ARE INSUFFERABLE IN THEIR SELF PROMOTION, WHAT CAN I SAY?

Also I wish to remind everyone that you can order now on sale, and have a bunch of books delivered to your loved one’s kindle on Christmas morning and look like a big spender!

FROM SARAH A. HOYT, 1.99 TILL THE 6TH – Darkship Renegades

When you save the world, you expect a hero’s welcome.

Maybe a ticker tape parade.

Instead, Athena Hera Sinistra and her husband Kit find themselves arrested,

threatened, accused of crimes they don’t even understand.

Tyranny has seized the free world of Eden.

With Kit wounded, his life in peril, they must go to Earth and risk all to save him.

And perhaps, perhaps, to save Eden once more.

If it can be saved.

Join Thena and Kit in their desperate quest to save the world. Again.

BY ELISE HYATT — WHICH IS REALLY SARAH A. HOYT — A French Polished Murder ON SALE FOR 99C TILL THE 6TH

Old murder casts long shadows

When Dyce Dare decides to refinish a piano as a gift for her boyfriend, Cas Wolfe, the last thing she expects is to stumble on an old letter that provides a clue to an older murder. She thinks her greatest problems in life are that her friend gave her son a toy motorcycle, and that her son has become unaccountably attached to a neurotic black cat named Pythagoras. She is not prepared for forgotten murder to reach out and threaten her and everything she loves, including her parents’ mystery bookstore.

A Dyce Dare Mystery.
Originally published by Prime Crime.

The Cross-Time Kamaitachi (Timelines Universe Book 5)

I did not land here as a warrior, but a warrior I so soon became . . .

One moment, Dr. Yukiko Yamaguchi was in her high-tech singularity research lab in California, busily adjusting an electronically-leaky fitting playing hell with her instrument readings.

The next moment, she was falling through space, and landing hard in a wilderness area she would quickly discover was her family’s ancient stomping grounds in Japan – but with an apocalyptic twist.

A hundred years later, there would be legends of a great yōkai, a demon, whom some called a kamaitachi – a sort-of whirlwind, weasel-like creature with blades for claws, which catches up unwary humans and slices their skin. But this kamaitachi is no ordinary yōkai – rather, she is

The Cross-Time Kamaitachi

The Tale of the Crane Princess (Timelines Universe Book 6)

Ordinary, everyday shopkeeper Horiuchi Tsurue is running a little general store and mini-café on a small island in Japan’s inland sea, two centuries after mankind was nearly wiped out by a virus.

One day, Yamaguchi Yukiko, the kamaitachi of legend (The Cross-Time Kamaitachi), and her daughter Mikoko, appear in front of Tsurue’s shop, and she invites them in for tea.

That’s when Tsurue discovers she is anything but ordinary. And in the end, the island she is sworn to protect will depend upon it.

THE REST OF THE BOOKS!

FROM JASON HANSON: Double Track

A shocking, perfectly planned abduction. A race against time. When two cops butt heads, can they learn to work together before their case becomes murder?

Anna Harlowe dots every “i” and crosses every “t”. So when two men dressed as state troopers kidnap a beautiful crypto analyst, the smart and capable county deputy takes the assignment, determined to do everything by the book. But after a special investigator arrives to look into the dirty-cop angle, Harlowe fears her handsome but unwelcome partner will blame her if things go sideways.

James Riley isn’t a team player. Assigned to recover a kidnapping victim as quietly as possible, he’s ready to cut corners to nail the perps even if it means stepping on the toes of the attractive lead detective. And when the inquiry immediately goes sour with a hospitalized eyewitness and zero video footage, the free-wheeling lone wolf suspects an inside job.

Furious as one thing after another goes wrong, Harlowe believes the criminals are always a few steps ahead of them. And while Riley grudgingly begins to respect his associate’s steady hand, a breakthrough witness getting gobbled up by a dirty lawyer convinces him someone in their midst is sabotaging their every move.

Can they decrypt the clever ploy before they’re left with blood on their hands?

Double Track is a jaw-dropping standalone techno-thriller. If you like dogged protagonists, noir-style mysteries, and a splash of romance, then you’ll love Jason Hanson’s pulse-pounding rollercoaster ride.

Buy Double Track to plunge into danger and deception today!

FROM MONALISA FOSTER: Threading the Needle

A NEW START—OR AN OLD CALLING?

Talia Merritt, a former military sniper once known as Death’s Handmaiden, is a woman haunted by her past. Her cybernetic arm and her phantom—the implant that allows her to control it—serve as a constant reminder of what she’s lost. But Talia is hoping to leave her past and her reputation behind and start anew on the colony world of Goruden, a hardscrabble planet of frontier-minded people seeking a better life. And she’s finally earned enough to start to make that dream come true.

In the bucolic town of Tsuri, she interviews for a job as a marksmanship instructor for local bigwig Signore Ferran Contesti. But Contesi is not what he seems. A recent arrival on Goruden, he hopes to mold the colony world in his own image—an image at odds with the unencumbered life free of government and corporate meddling that Talia has come to find.

Soon, Talia finds herself thrust into the start of another conflict. Talia desperately wants to stay out of it, but she may not have that luxury.

With the fate of a planet and her own peace of mind hanging in the balance, Talia must decide whether or not to once again take up the mantle of Death’s Handmaiden. . . .

At the publisher’s request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

FROM JAMES YOUNG: Wonder No More: An Alternate Leyte Gulf

October 1944. After almost three years of titanic struggle, the United States Navy has forced their Japanese opponents into one final titanic struggle: The Battle of Leyte Gulf.

Aboard the battleship Yamato, Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki is the sole survivor of an American airstrike. With the Center Force Ugaki now commands having suffered grievous losses, the sky full of American warplanes, and an uncertain situation in front of him, no rational person criticize a retreat. Bushido, however, is not rational, nor does Japan have the luxury of seeking battle another day. The Center Force must reach the American beachhead…or die trying.

Vice Admiral Willis Lee does not understand Bushido, but he can read a map. Despite aviators’ claims to have sent the Japanese fleet fleeing, Lee is considering insubordination when an engineering casualty forces his hand. Regardless of what dawn will bring for the carriers of Third Fleet, Lee will take Task Force 34 south to guard the exit of San Bernadino Strait.

Meanwhile, the U.S.S. Johnston rides herd on a small group of aircraft carriers designated “Taffy 3” off the coast of Samar. To her captain’s disappointment, the tides of war have prevented her from participating in the unfolding battle in Surigao Strait. For Ensign Jack Murphy, things couldn’t be better. He’s happily counting down the days until the United States Navy strangles the Empire of Japan by fishing aviators out of the ocean and hunting for nonexistent submarines. Pure Fate has brought him to the Johnston, and he is ready for the fickle goddess to carry him just as safely off the destroyer’s deck when she next docks.

Unbeknownst to all three men, when dawn breaks on the 25th of October the lives of thousands will turn on their decisions. Titans will clash, with the fate of the Philippines hanging in the balance!

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Holidays and Holy Days (Modern Gods)

Hera was hard at work in her counseling office when her clients started cancelling for Thanksgiving travel. She…hadn’t realized that a) that was coming up, or b) what it actually about…until she did a little research and decided to celebrate. In the process, she learns about Christmas coming, and decides that it’s high time somebody threw Christ a birthday party.

Of course, nothing goes as planned, but when does it ever?

FROM BLAKE SMITH: An American Thanksgiving

It is Thanksgiving Day, 1865, and Margaret Browne isn’t feeling very thankful. The war is over, and her grown-up sons have returned from the fighting, but her beloved husband remains absent, last seen a captive in a notorious prisoner-of-war camp. The Browne family muddles through their uncertain path, lost without their leader, but when everything begins to go wrong all at once, Margaret must hold together the farm and her family, and turn a disaster into a true day of thanks-giving.

FROM HEATHER STRICKLER: Bearskin (To Shame The Devil Book 1)

No one beats the Devil.

Cut loose and abandoned after a losing war, Gregor seeks to bury the past and find a future. Any future.

When his own stubbornness leads to a desperate deal with the devil, Gregor must forge a new path. Can mortal man beat the Devil at his own game? And who will he drag down with him if he fails?

BY FREDERIC BROWN, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: The Screaming Mimi (Annotated): The classic pulp serial killer mystery

A drunken Irishman named Sweeney — well, to be fair, he was only five-eighths Irish, and only three-quarters drunk — made a resolution. Sticking to it took him through murder, and blood, and tracking down a sculptor on the far side of nowhere, and delivered him right up to the doorstep of a serial killer!

• This iktaPOP Media edition has a new introduction giving the book genre and historical context.

FROM CLEVE F. ADAMS, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: Too Fair To Die (Annotated): The classic hard-boiled pulp noir

Cherchez la femme, they told McBride. Find the woman. He hit the trail in the suburbs of L.A., and wound up in the heart of Montana; in the heart of a bitter, bullet-baited gubernatorial election; in the heart of the one woman he would have given his life to put behind bars.

• This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction giving the book historical and genre context.

FROM LINDSEY PETERSEN: The Wizards’ Duel: Magic, Technology and Justice (The Reluctant Chrononaut Adventures Book 3

Reluctant time-traveler Kate Thomason races against a self-proclaimed King of the Elves and his plots destroy Tesla’s energy-beaming towers and retrieve a powerful ancient book of magic. He would ruin the global economy, cause geological catastrophe and gain occult powers.. In her journey she partners with Mata Hari, Aleister Crowley, Arsène Lupin, and others to avenge her murdered husband and save humanity.

As Kate Cameron sat on an Ulster balcony the Tesla earth-energy broadcast tower across the strait collapsed, taking her husband Dougray down to certain death in the rocks and waters below. Kate sensed that the peculiar gentleman at the next table was somehow responsible – and she vowed to do whatever she must to avenge Dougray’s death. Since H. G. Wells abducted her from her life of ease two hundred years in the future Kate had chased the Loch Ness Monster on the Nautilus, thwarted a plot to kidnap Queen Victoria, and found love and a life with an annoying Scot in kilts. And now he was gone, and with his death all her future dreams collapse to one single point – ending the life of the man who called himself Errol Koenig. Kate trails her prey to the continent on the hypersteam train, pausing briefly in London for the devices and gear needed to hunt a killer. Along the way she meets allies in Mata Hari, Winston Churchill, Nicola Tesla, Arsène Lupin, and others, as she follows Koenig’s trail of destroyed Tesla towers to Paris, where she boards the Orient Express to close with her prey as he flees eastward. The nearer Kate gets to the man the more she feels herself falling victim to his charisma. Is this man truly the King of the Elves he proclaims himself to be? How else to account for the bewildering allure of the man she intends to kill? But wait, there’s more! Lupin claims Koenig is also a criminal mastermind, with a vast network of criminals and secret information available to mislead and mystify. Tesla worries that as his earth-power-transmitting towers are brought down, the disruption of earth’s energies will cause cataclysmic destruction. Is that part of Koenig’s plan too? To destroy modern civilization? Her simple plan to pursue and kill her husband’s murderer thrusts her into a strange world of automatons and magic as she gathers friends to save the world from a maniac, culminating atop an ancient tower in a thunderstorm. The second book in The Reluctant Chrononaut series.

FROM A. PALMER: Hope is the Second Door on the Left

Hope is the Second Door on the Left is a collection of poems centered around facing difficulties of life, directing the reader toward goodness and hope, and then attempting to describe life after hope is chosen.

We all must face such a choice in our own lives, eventually.

FROM MARY CATELLI: The Princess Seeks Her Fortune

In a land where ten thousand fairy tales come true, Alissandra knows she is in one when an encounter with a strange woman gives her magical gifts, and another gives her sisters a curse.

And she knows that despite the prospects of enchantments, cursed dances, marvelous birds, and work as a scullery maid, it is wise of her to set out, and seek her fortune.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Red Star, Yellow Sign

Whom the gods would destroy, they first drive mad.

It’s 1934, and the assassination of Sergei Kirov, Leningrad’s Communist Party chief, has rocked the Soviet Union. When an up and coming young Party official is assigned to investigate, it looks like an open and shut case.

The further Nikolai Yezhov looks into the case, the stranger things become. Mysterious entities lie beneath the swamps upon which Leningrad was founded. Because he has stumbled upon these secrets older than humanity itself, Yezhov must be eliminated. But first he must be led to commit acts that will ensure that history will forever remember him as a vicious criminal.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: YELL