I've been so excited to get my hands on this last book in the Solas Beir Trilogy by Melissa Eskue Ousley and I can't wait to share it with all of you!
About the book:
As the new king of a world in turmoil, life for David Corbin is grim, at best.
Abby
Brown, the love of his life, has vanished without a trace, and David
fears the worst. And, to make matters worse, a new evil has arisen, the mysterious
Sower, a monster puppeteered by Tierney himself.
On the bright
side, David has his treacherous aunt locked up in his dungeon, and she owes David
for saving her life. Lucia may have critical information about Tierney’s
plans for the Sower, but after all the trouble she’s caused, can David
ever trust her again?
***
I was so excited to get my hands on this book! I've loved the series overall and I had high hopes for this final installment and I certainly wasn't disappointed. The characters continued to be complex and engaging, pulling me in with their internal and external struggles. I loved the development of Abby and David's relationship after everything they've been through, but there are so many other aspects to the story that draw readers in than just the wonderful romance.
It was heartbreaking to sit next to everyone through certain parts of the book (no spoilers) and experience their suffering along with the characters. I've always enjoyed Tierney's story and watching him struggle with his desires, demons, and lingering hope that things can turn out in a way that will accomplish the goals he originally started out trying to meet. His characters is fascinating, gut wrenching, and hands down difficult to walk away from.
I was so wrapped up in the story and emotions of the characters that teared up in a few places and I loved how expertly the author was able to write characters that you both loved and hated, rooted for and hoped for their downfall. It was such an emotional journey with these characters. The plot was well crafted as well, wrapping up all the questions and giving me a satisfying ending that it so difficult to find in many books. I highly recommend the entire series. Wonderful conclusion!
Today I'm pleased to welcome Stephanie Gilzene to the blog to talk about her experience in writing poetry.
But first, a little about her writing...
This book of poems was written to share the experience of a poet’s
collective thoughts. Allow this book of poems to take you on a poetic
journey, letting words lead the way.
Now let's talk poetry!
Q: I'd love to hear about your experience of putting all your
poetry together and how you chose what to include and what not to include.
A: Thank you DelSheree for taking the
time to feature me on your blog. I’m excited to be featured on a blog post, for
the first time ever! I have been writing poetry for over 16 years now. My
poetry started off as creative writing. I always loved being adventurous or
mysterious whenever I would tell or write a short story. Poetry became a
beautiful extension of my creative writing skills. For years, I would write a
poem here and there. I would be very conscientious to date my poems! I wanted
to be reminded of the times in which I wrote them. If I had a brand new
notebook, I would write a poem on the first few pages. Sometimes I would rip
the pages out and put them in a safe place.
Other times I would just leave the
notebook on the table and every day I would write a new poem or I would write a
short story. I eventually created a collection of poems. I knew that one day I
wanted to write a book of poetry. I was not sure when I would be able to do it
and how I would be able to do it.Still,
I knew that one day, a book of poetry would be published! Last year, around May
2014, I found some old poems. I remember looking at the poems thinking, “Maybe
I should finally finish that book of poetry I always wanted to publish.” So, I
opened up my laptop and went straight to my Google Drive: opened up a new
document and started typing. Before I knew it, I typed up a template for a
book. I was so excited. I started to research the process of publishing a book
of poetry. Every day for about a month I would write my poems on paper and then
type them into my book template.
Choosing which poems would make the “cut” per
se was an interesting process. I had a pile of poems but I needed to figure out
what the theme of my book would be or if there would be a theme at all. I
wanted this book of poetry to be an introduction to different emotions. So the
poems that I would publish would need to have an element of intuitiveness,
excitement, or concern; I wanted them to extend beyond the usual ‘happy’ or
‘sad’ option. Eventually, I had enough pages to start looking at the process of
publishing. I self-published and I am so proud of my work. I hope the world
enjoys Poems from Stories Yet to Be Told!
Join the Sept. 15th Release Day Party on FacebookHERE
Enjoy giveaways with a dozen different authors!
Danica Bennett isn't sure what she hates more...her job or the fact that she's good at it. As one of the many Hollywood paparazzi, she lives her life incognito and sneaks around trying to get the best shot of the latest star. When she is mistaken for an extra on a new, up and coming TV show, her own star rises and she becomes the one being photographed. Add that to the fact that she's falling for her co-star, Eliot Lane, and Danica is in a whole heap of trouble.
Brooke Williams writes in a sleep-deprived state while her daughters nap. Her romantic comedy is best read in the same state. Brooke has twelve years of radio in her background, both behind the scenes and on the air. She was also a television traffic reporter for a short time despite the fact that she could care less about hair and make-up. Today, Brooke stays at home with her daughters and works as a freelance writer for a variety of companies. When she isn’t working for paying clients, she makes things up, which results in books like “Accept this Dandelion.” Brooke is also the author of "Accept this Dandelion," “Wrong Place, Right Time,” “Someone Always Loved You,” “Beyond the Bars.” She plans to continue the Dandelion story into a series and looks forward to her first children's book release “Baby Sheep Gets a Haircut” in June 2016. Brooke and her husband Sean have been married since 2002 and have two beautiful daughters, Kaelyn (5) and Sadie (nearly 2).
Coming soon from Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar: The Migrant Report
About the book:
Against the glittering high-rises of the capital, Manu, a recent arrival from Nepal, drips his days away on a construction site, cut off from the world outside the labor camp. His sister despairs of finding him among the thousands of migrant workers flooding into the Arabian Gulf to build the country’s infrastructure.
Police captain Ali's hopes of joining the elite government forces are dashed when his childhood deformity is discovered. His demotion brings him face to face with the corruption of labor agencies and also Maryam, an aspiring journalism student, who is unlike any local girl he has ever met. In danger of flunking out of university, Maryam is searching for an original story that will appease her professor and keep her family’s machinations for marriage in check.
Can the unlikely trio fit the pieces of the puzzle together before agency thugs get to Manu, the burgeoning labor agitator?
Guest Post:
Between Literary and Chicky By Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar
I didn’t control my Muse. Not in a specific way to generate particular ideas. Sure, I sit down several times a week and force myself to produce as much as I can in the few hours I have between kids’ birthday parties and swim lessons. I go away once a year, for a week, (or longer, if I can find a place to stash the kids) to write, mingle with other writerly types, and figure out how I can get better at storytelling.
The ideas for my previous books often began with a central question. One that rolls around and around on deck, waiting for her turn at the keyboard. How a modern person with traditional values finds love is at the center of my first paperback Love Comes Later. The answer is the story.
In The Dohmestics, I explore how well we know those closest to us or ourselves. The ensemble cast in the novel is a composite of people I’ve known while living in the Middle East country of Qatar. Their tangled lives represent the ways in which expats and their domestic help support and infuriate each other.
Perhaps because my books ponder issues, rather than focus on a sequence of events, I resist categorization as a genre writer. My novels can’t really find a home like others, where stories cluster, based on common devices or types.
Yet, for the last year or so, I have been trying to get a handle on myself as a writer and channel ideas instead of letting them lead me into genre-defying projects. Not as easy as it sounds.
Crime is what I hoped to get into one year ago: July 2014. Not in real life, as it were, but for my writing. If you can get a believable, likeable, empathetic detective type, you are golden. The books seem to write themselves.
Scandinavian writers like Steig Larrson and Henning Mankel had inspired me for years. They took the genre as a venue for social critique and pointed out the failure of Nordic utopia. I’ve seen other places struggle with the burden of wealth and a small citizenry.
I set down a nascent story during National Novel Writing Month in 2015. The premise was simple: a main character living in a labor camp in the Arabian Gulf, one of the kind present in monthly sports news about the 2022 World Cup.
The Migrant Report was my first attempt to research, outline, plan, write, and revise a novel from start to finish. The first manuscript was 50,000 word. The published version, now available at online retailers, is almost double the original word count.
I’m nervous, I’m elated. One second I worry I’ve gotten it all wrong; the next I’m telling everyone this is the best material I’ve ever written. If you’d like to review The Migrant Report and tell me your thoughts, drop me a comment below. What type of stories do you like to read or write?
Meet the Author
Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar is a South Asian American who has lived in Qatar since 2005. Moving to
the Arabian Desert was fortuitous in many ways since this is where she met her husband, had two sons, and became a writer. She has since published eight e-books, including a momoir for first time mothers, Mommy But Still Me; a guide for aspiring writers, So You Want to Sell a Million Copies; a short story collection, Coloured and Other Stories; and a novel about women’s friendships, Saving Peace.
Her coming of age novel, An Unlikely Goddess, won the SheWrites New Novelist competition in 2011. Her recent books have focused on various aspects of life in Qatar. From Dunes to Dior, named as a Best Indie book in 2013, is a collection of essays related to her experiences as a female South Asian American living in the Arabian Gulf. Love Comes Later was the winner of the Best Indie Book Award for Romance in 2013 and is a literary romance set in Qatar and London. The Dohmestics is an inside look into compound life, the day-to-day dynamics between housemaids and their employers.
After she joined the e-book revolution, Mohana dreams in plotlines.
Learn more about her work on her website at www.mohadoha.com or follow her latest on Twitter: @moha_doha.
New Release: Wonders That We See by Crystal Harrell
Wonders That We See: A Poetry Collection details the life and times,
trials and tribulations, and personal discoveries of a young girl during
her formative teenage years. Each poem is crafted with a profound sense
of awareness and romantic vocabulary in its verses. Themes of
isolation, self-realization, and inspiration are present in the poetry,
making it an ideal collection for those looking to recover a piece of
themselves they did not know were missing.
Crystal here: avid reader and anecdotist extraordinaire delivering news
to fellow desert dwellers. I believe that writing is one of the most
captivating methods of expression, and I love the idea of creating
something poetically profound from just the stray thoughts that happen
to cross my mind—a facet of the soul that really is beauty in its most
contemplative form.
Today I'm pleased to welcome William J Jackson to the blog to talk about his new book and the steampunk genre!
First a little about the book...
Railroad City, Missouri used to be the mecca of right, of trust, of technology. When an alien element triggered the creation of paranormals, a small crew known as the Guild of Honor formed. Their actions changed the world, and moved it from Industrial Age to a time of speed and wonder.
1886: two years after the heroes are dead, victims of a jealous America. Two years of military rule in the Rail. Paranormals have gone from amazing curiosities to a dying breed. In this miasma of pain and cruelty, where good is deemed evil, a startling series of murders occurs. Can the killer be caught who leaves no bodies, no weapon, and no crime scene? Pushed into this mess is Professor Flag Epsom, the man who can see the past. Coupled with a violent femme fatale, can these two paranormals work together to find the killer, or will they end one another?
AN UNSUBSTANTIATED CHAMBER, or HOW I LEARNED TO RE-LOVE
HISTORY
My first book is for sale on Amazon. An Unsubstantiated Chamber is the first in a series taking place in an advanced Victorian era city in the West called the Railroad City (locals call it the Rail). Nestled in southwestern Missouri, the tale brings together two unlikely protagonists who seem like antagonists, against an evil menace while the Rail is gripped in the leash of the American military. As a chase story, it is written to be direct and fast paced, not long.
Steampunk would be the book’s main genre, but what is that, you may ask? Doesn’t sound like action, ring of romance or drip with mystery. Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction. To put it bluntly, I prefer to see it as science fiction in reverse; let’s explore a more advanced yesterday and its effects rather than the future. While most of this genre hails from Victorian England and America (mine being the latter) there is a burgeoning set of steampunk tales in other countries, and not necessarily the Victorian era. Wherever there be steam power…
While my peculiar blend of punk forms a literary compound with classic four color comic books, the research is still a requirement. For this I went into what I would term the basic insight. What is the Victorian Age? How did they speak, dress, move, work, play? What I used for the first book still holds for others. Ernest Freeberg’s The Age of Edison, Thomas Schlereth’s Victorian America and the Metropolitan Corridor by John Stilgoe have been crucial to information on the expanse and change brought by trains, industry and more. Two of those books are a little old, but old fits the time. If you want to get the historical aspects correct, you can’t ignore the history. After all, when heroes and villains aren’t battling, they have to grab meals, ride a carriage, buy things, etc. You want the feel to be right.
Slang helps, and the Victorian period has loads. Since one of my protagonists is Scots-Irish, he has a bit of Old World slang I researched, some Western terms he picked up, and words he makes up because, well, that’s Flag’s thing. Writing is one two parts research/data, one part free imagination.
Now, the technology! Let’s go back a tad to short versions. Two years before the novel, I was writing short stories of the Rail, still believing I would never write a full novel (surprise!). The Rail began as a tabletop roleplaying game twenty years further back, and fermented in my mind. I knew I wanted fast trains, had a man in steam armor, and more. But then Flag Epsom came into my head as easy as a bird can fly. Due to my ever-present love of the Six Million Dollar Man, I quickly noted the value of a steam-powered bionic man. But adding to it the literary archetype of the Guy You Love To Hate, and a paranormal power to see the past (replacing the bionic eye bit) made him more human, more interesting. That’s also the power of thinking outside the box. Many folks think, say, only romantic notions to do romance. But I got one of my best steampunk characters from a 1970’s show that now may be more appropriately dubbed atompunk. As for the steam prosthetics, they had to be steel. But, I wanted them to make Flag a little uneven, bulky. I wanted the engine to make him always hot, so he wears, at best, a thin long coat suitable only for spring, even in winter. The gears clink. The springs make tension creaks. Why? Because it adds depth, it adds reality. Then I figured the geniuses making them gave him better versions every six months, while his mood stayed poor. After all, he is half a man, and no fake limb can make him feel whole.
Negatrite powers many devices in the Rail, gave people paranormal abilities (the comic book part). So, the military has large ironclads that fly in the air on steam engines imbued with the stuff. This is like a Civil War ironclad, turned upside down and much larger. My intention here was to convey power, a dark power overhead. It’s a common steampunk trapping, and I like it. It is one of the easiest ways to display a bloated empire placing an aerial boot heel over the face of the populace.
While the Rail hosts airships as fire engines, masked men, cheaper implants and revolvers that fire explosives, I use them only when it fits the tale, and hopefully that shines through. Wanna race with Epsom and Astin? If you do, let me know how you like the Rail and its unique ways.
About the author
William J. Jackson lives in yesterday and tomorrow. He has only the vaguest awareness of the present, and when he does, he writes. As fan of history, nature, comics and science fiction, Jackson merges these hobbies into the Legacy Universe, his fictitious saga of the denizens of Railroad City, Missouri. When not writing, he travels through time, stares at birds, and works and lives in historic Salem, New Jersey with his darling wife and family.
