Read Adventurously!
It’s now the third Book Plug Friday. And they said we wouldn’t last.
We’ve got a lovely and eclectic collection of books this time, from non-fiction, to Christian memoir, to steampunk, to crime novels.
Now that we’ve been doing it for a couple of weeks we’ve begun to figure out the rules and details.
To submit a piece for consideration, email us at [email protected]. You’ll receive an automated reply with the submission rules — because when better than after you’ve already submitted?
Here are the rules:
- Your submission should include a link to Amazon if at all possible. B&N and iTunes links are okay in addition, but frankly Amazon gives PJ a cut for any purchases you make through our links.
- Deadline for Friday is Tuesday midnight Mountain Time the preceding week. That is, if you want it in this Friday, we needed it by last Tuesday midnight Mountain Time.
- No more than 2 books per author per week, and don’t resubmit a plug for at least a month.
- Please submit a blurb of 50 words or less with each book.
- If you’re named after another author’s character, we need signed note from the author or his/her heirs.
- It’s free, don’t complain about the service.
- The whim of the editors is law, even with respect to the preceding six rules.
So, this week’s crop, more or less in order of arrival and untainted by editorial choice is below. If a book doesn’t sound like something you’d read, don’t buy it. If it does, have fun.
In the indie jungle, adventurers can find good reads.
Lars Walker
In the latest entry in the saga of Erling Skjalgsson, the 11th Century Norwegian chieftain is struck by a deadly curse, and must journey north along with his friends in order to crush it at its source. Meanwhile Freydis, niece of the smith Lemming, is kidnapped by the servants of a mysterious, ancient cannibalistic race who dwell in secret in the mountains of the north. Once again the Irish priest Father Ailill narrates a tale of struggle, faith, endurance, and supernatural peril. Fans of H. Rider Haggard will delight in this “lost world” adventure.
Robert D. Rose
It was a kidnapping and revenge scheme so over-planned it was bound to fail, but 22-year-old David Thorne doesn’t have much of a choice. Retired spy Gregor Lunden has taken Thorne’s $170,616 share of a Baltimore robbery. To get it back means help Lunden commit a kidnapping and probably murder. David Thorne is determined that it won’t be his own….
Celia Hayes
The Stephens-Townsend-Murphy wagon train party crossed the continent in 1844, blazing a trail through the wilderness from Ft. Hall in present-day Idaho, across the high desert and over the Sierra Nevada range to Sacramento; two thousand miles across unknown, trackless wilderness on a gamble that life at the end of the trail would be better. This is the story of their journey, every dusty mile and hard choice, and of an extraordinary group of ordinary Americans.
Westering Wagons and Other Legends of the Frontier
These essays are collected from my various archives, and focus on events and persons – some of them well-known and some of them not known at all. Some incidents and people have been the inspiration for movies, but many more of them ought to be.
This is a collection of essays about Texas history and people, which originally were blog posts on various blogs. It can be read as a companion and extended footnote to my novels about Texas; The Adelsverein Trilogy, Daughter of Texas, Deep in the Heart, and the upcoming release, The Quivera Trail, which will be available in November, 2013.
C. Blake Powers
A Different View: Travels to Al Qa’im and Beyond
An exploration in image and word of day-to-day life of our troops, along with a reminder that beauty can be found in many places even in the most interesting of times.
This book covers my time with the 1st Battalion of the 4th Marines at Al Qa’im, Iraq at the Syrian border; and, a bit about Landstuhl Hospital in Germany — and something very special that takes place there above and beyond the excellent care given.
This is not a book about combat, rather it focuses on the everyday sights that reflect the majority of the time at war that is routine. It is an attempt to share that not seen on the news, and provide a glimpse into a world few have seen and of which even fewer understand.
My hope is that the reader will pause to think even as I try to make them laugh and cry.
Anthony Pacheco
A science fiction murder mystery.
ANGRY PRINCESS IS ANGRY. Investigator Lexus Nancy Toulouse, ex-soldier extreme: finds her Libido Generator is on the fritz, learns her old warship wants to “get back together” (despite the fact she already has four husbands!), loses whatever war-torn sanity she had left in a crime reenactment and becomes the Princess Concubine to the mysterious Empress. Then, while trying on lingerie, someone tried to blow her up and she regenerated all the way back to a teenager. Now there will be lots of blood AND NONE OF IT HERS.
Valerie R. Richardson
“Wounded” is a frank look at the wounds dealt to Christians by the Church, and by each other, and biblical ways to fix them. Warmly personal, using stories from the author’s life, herself a wounded Christian, “Wounded” is a must read for pastors, youth leaders and every Christian who has ever found themselves hurt by the Church or fellow believers.
Mackey Chandler
April is an exceptional young lady and something of a snoop. She finds herself involved with intrigues that stretch her abilities after a chance run in with a spy. There is a terrible danger she and her friends and family will lose the only home she has ever known in orbit and be forced to live on the slum ball below. It’s more than a almost teen can deal with. Fortunately she has a lot of smart friends and allies. It’s a good thing because things get very rough and dicey.
James Young
In the year 3050, the destroyer Shigure is chosen for a mission critical to mankind. With a new device of unprecedented capabilities, an untested crew and a bold captain, the “Late Rain” is more than she seems…but it remains to be seen if that is enough.
“Ride of the Late Rain” received an Honorable Mention in the Fall 2012 L. Ron Hubbard “Writer’s of the Future” Contest.
Peter Grant
Trapped in the Dragon Tong’s search for a lost legend, Steve Maxwell finds a way out by enlisting in the Lancastrian Commonwealth Fleet.
If he survives long enough to earn a commission, he’ll be able to hunt down the pirates who killed his mentor. To get there, he’ll have to slog through rain-swollen swamps, dodge incoming fire on a ‘peacekeeping’ mission, and face down a gang of angry smugglers. Even far away from enemies, a mistake can turn a spaceship into a deathtrap.
It’ll take resourcefulness and courage to succeed… but Steve hasn’t come this far in order to fail.
K. V. Taylor
(Publisher)
From independent publisher Dagan Books, IN SITU is a new anthology of science fiction stories featuring alien archeology, hidden mysteries, and things that are better off left buried.
A quiet man finds more than he bargained for when he sets out with his metal detector on a lonely hill … A soldier meets a new kind of enemy fighting an altogether different kind of war … On a distant swamp planet, a woman questions what kind of human she’s becoming … a pregnant archeologist finds a connection with a long-dead alien child … while deep space scavengers wonder what it ever meant to be human at all.
These fifteen evocative science fiction stories will take you from dusty archaeologists digging up our alien past into a distant future where we’ve become the relics. Thought-provoking and entertaining, IN SITU explores science, theology, preservation, and the art of alien finance, in a whole new way.
Edited by Carrie Cuinn. Contains stories by Ken Liu, KV Taylor, Paul A. Dixon, Bear Weiter, Mae Empson, Jason Andrew, Greg Burch, Sarah Hendrix, R.S. Hunter, Rebecca Lloyd, Alex Shvartsman, Kelly C. Stiles, Graham Storrs, David J. West, and Dawn Vogel.
What secrets belong only to a fish? Dive in and find out! Explore this genre-bending anthology of 33 delightfully fishy tales. Fantasy, science fiction, retold folklore, new myths, and more await you.
Laura Montgomery
A generation has passed since asteroid scares led the United States to launch its first and only interstellar starship. The ship returns and announces the discovery of another Earth. People are star-struck, crowds form in Washington, DC, and a boy from Alaska and two lawyers grapple with questions surrounding whether ordinary people will emigrate to the stars.
This is bourgeois, legal science fiction with a hearty helping of space policy wonkery.
(Charlie: I will say, this one intrigued me enough that I bought it myself.)
Archer Garrett
Book 1 of the Western Front Series.
Darkness has descended upon the world; the fabric of society has been torn asunder, sovereign nations collapse under their own burdens, once stable governments are ushered into revolution and allies of old are thrust into war. The tentacles of darkness have inevitably traveled across the Atlantic and are now tightening their grip on the American republic.
Now, faced with a collapsing economy, a failing currency and a society that is swiftly casting its humanity aside, the United States stands at the precipice of a bedlam and malevolence not witnessed since the fall of Rome.
In search of adventure, a young man is propelled across the multiverse to world very different than our own. Airships are plagued by sky pirates. Sea monsters haunt the seas. Cities glow by the light of alchemical reagents, while evil lurks in the shadows just beyond.
Karen Myers
Book 1 of The Hounds of Annwn.
George Talbot Traherne is just doing his job on a fine autumn morning, keeping the hounds together for the huntsman of the Rowanton Hunt in Virginia along the Blue Ridge Mountain. Doesn’t pay to get distracted by a white stag in unfamiliar territory, though. Next thing you know, you might find yourself… somewhere else.
The land is the same but not the people. Their huntsman has just been murdered, and George is tapped for the job. It’s an emergency – the Wild Hunt is only two weeks away, and if it doesn’t happen on schedule, the antlered god Cernunnos will take the realm from its ruler Gwyn ap Nudd and find someone who can mete out justice with the Hounds of Hell in his place.
George throws himself into the task, finding strength in the mission and resources he never knew he had. The more he comes to feel at home, settling into his new responsibilities, the more he wants to stay and make a life for himself. He’s finally met someone worth spending his life with, even if she’s just a bit older, a mere fifteen hundred years or so.
Can he keep the Wild Hunt on track despite the attempts to thwart it? Will he be accepted by those he wants to defend who view his timely presence and his human blood with suspicion? Above all, what does Cernunnos want of him and how far will he go? Can he survive the attention of a god?
Cyn Bagley
is a chapbook that contains twenty poems written in 2013 about a small apartment complex in Carson City, Nevada. The poems are an assortment of haikus, tanka, pantoum, and free verse. The first poem starts with “I see the rain tap on the window.”
Cyn Bagley’s poetry has been published in various literary journals such as the Acumen and Bibliophilos. At this time she has two more chapbooks published on Amazon and Smashwords.
Thomas Alexander
Blood is currency in Avenesse. Mortals faced extinction from the undead legions of the Deathlands. Vampires called nephilim offered a bargain: protection for blood. Facing slavery or annihilation, many mortals submitted. Now blood is currency, vampirism is political power, and undead unsanctioned by the Lunar Emperor must be destroyed. Ashia Boucher is the mortal daughter of the nephilim who watches over the Deathlands border. Her father shields Ashia from Avenesse’s harsh realities and turns a blind eye to her pursuit of forbidden necromantic blood magic. A new Terror haunts Ashia’s family and all Avenesse. Lead by the outlaw Dualo, renegade vampires murder mortals and nephilim alike. With the help of the gunslinging witch hunter Etienne Dusang, the mischievous changeling Tamalandrea and the demon horse Uisthre, Ashia must face the Terror threatening Avenesse or die to her family’s numerous enemies.
Kate Paulk
Impaler by Kate Paulk revisits the tale of Vlad Dracul, also known as Vlad Tepes and Vlad the Impaler. This is the tale of historical fact mixed with fiction and a touch of fantasy. But this is most definitely not the tired tale of vampires skulking in the night, lying in wait for innocent victims. Impaler tells the tale of a man devoted to family and country, cursed and looking for redemption.
December, 1476. The only man feared by the all-conquering Ottoman Sultan battles to reclaim his throne. If he falls all of Europe lies open to the Ottoman armies. If he succeeds…
His army is outnumbered and outclassed, his country is tiny, and he is haunted by a terrible curse. But Vlad Draculea will risk everything on one almost impossible chance to free his people from the hated Ottoman Empire.
Kaichi Satake
In the far future, the colony planet of Farai is on the brink of civil war. Colonel Jason Ebert, a master assassin from Exedra, and his neophyte Faraian partner, Mara ibn Durazzi set out to kill the rebels’ leader and replace him with a double. But when Jason becomes emotionally attached to his partner—the double he has been ordered to kill at mission’s end—he must repress his own morality or risk not only the success of his mission but the stability of the Faraian government and the Colony Alliance itself.
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