Straight Browsing from the Library: Truth and Dare by Ann M. Trader

 

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Ann M. Trader will award a randomly drawn winner a $20 Amazon/BN GC. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

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A bright and talented environmental engineer, Goldie Vreeland understands facts and figures, but Max Corda, her secret office obsession, remains a puzzle. On the eve of a business trip to a coastal island, fate intervenes, pairing her with her sexy crush. As she thinks about sharing the same space with Max for a week, her world veers dangerously off course.

Fueled by success as engineer and president of his family’s firm, recently divorced Max needs to jumpstart his life. When his father unexpectedly assigns him to Goldie’s project, his closely guarded attraction to her comes front and center. Thoughts of spending a week alone with this beautiful intelligent woman make his internal compass glitch.

Romance stirs with the island breeze, so simple when they’re hundreds of miles away from normal. But as Goldie and Max return to reality, will they discover real love is more than a game?

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A trio of knocks interrupted my thoughts, and I glanced at my watch. Right on time. My shoes—timeless black Italian leather pumps worth every dollar I doled out on them—clicked on the parquet tile as I approached the door…and opened it to him.

Max’s muscular frame filled the doorway, a mesmerizing vision, sexy as hell and completely effortless on his part. He had the lean, sculpted torso and long legs of a runway model, but none of the cushy edges. I leaned on the door, imagining his physique was every tailored suit’s dream. Every woman’s, too. I swallowed a tiny sigh, convinced God must’ve cashed in all His chips when He created Max Corda.

I straightened, holding my purse in my hands. “Hi.”

“Hello,” Max said, smiling.

I caught myself gazing at his lips a little too long, and looked away, praying I wasn’t wearing a blush to match my heated cheeks.

“You look lovely.” He crossed his arms, the move accentuating the breadth of his chest. “I know we’re here on business.” His gaze skimmed up and down my body. “But when you come to the door looking like this, Shembery’s integrated water management strategies are the last thing on my mind.”

My breath hitched, awestruck his thoughts mirrored mine. I’d studied Max to distraction for seventeen weeks, four days—no, make that three—and I liked him. Very much.

MEET THE AUTHOR

I enjoy spending time with my family and exploring recipes on the lighter side of southern comfort foods. I’m a member of Heart of Carolina Romance Writers, and I love relaxing on my back porch to read and write. These days I take walks around my neighborhood, but when I was sixteen, I hiked the Grand Canyon with a group of friends. I love watching television dramas (in no special order): Palm Royale, The Buccaneers, The Bear, Mary and George, Emily in Paris, Outlander, Shrinking, Shogun, Bridgerton, Outer Banks, Stranger Things, The Crown, and Peaky Blinders and reading a great romance book.

Website: http://www.annmtrader.com
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/annmtrader
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/ann-m-trader
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/annmtraderbooks
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21925238.Ann_M_Trader
Twitter: https://twitter.com/anntrader5

Amazon Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/Truth-Dare-Wonder-Wildflowers-Book-ebook/dp/B0D3JG5KQ8/ref=sr_1_1

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Straight Browing from the Library: Cargo of Bones by Z. Lindsey

 

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Z. Lindsey will award a randomly drawn winner a $25 Amazon/BN gift card + a digital copy of the book via Rafflecopter. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

>READ THE GUEST BLOG

Straight From the Library asked if I could provide information about the favorite book of Essimore Darkenchyl, the hero of my new fantasy novel CARGO OF BONES. Well, I asked her her thoughts, and after working dangerously close to the deadline, she sent me a 250,000-word treatise on the subject, complete with index page and works cited. I’ve edited her treatise down to about six hundred words for you gentle readers.

-Z Lindsey, author of CARGO OF BONES

When I was a little girl, I grew up a few blocks from the Holy Library of the spiral city of Oreland. It towers in the background of all my childhood memories. Like all Aordés children, I learned how to write in lost runes, how to catalog low-level secrets, and at what point after a book’s due date it is okay to threaten to cut off someone’s finger.

The answer is five days, by the way.

Eventually, though, I discovered pirate novels! An old human trader I saw by that big rock that looks like a foot sold me one for a gold coin. I now know that was a bit of a high fee for a pirate novel, but it changed my life, so in the end, it was worth it.

My father was very distressed when he caught me reading it, but he bit his tongue and allowed it. He was a fool; I was easily corrupted by the tales of high adventure and rogue-like daring, which is why I decided to become a bureaucrat.

Yes, I decided to leave behind the desert to sail on the ocean as a shipping coordinator for the Blessed Agency. I wasn’t good at lifting stuff or tying knots or swimming, (I’m still not, to be honest), but I was good at using magic to do mundane bureaucratic tasks like calculate payroll! (And I still am!)

That first pirate novel I read was the Dreiwick the Deserter novel Blood and Booty by famed pulp novelist Keroel the Elder. And Dreiwick was my absolute favorite series for a long time. I say was because it admittedly started to go off the rails after a while. The first twist ending was so good, then the second twist was pretty good, then he should’ve stopped doing twist endings.

When I got older, I kind of realized the first Dreiwick book--Blood and Booty--was a propaganda novel. Sure, Dreiwick’s a deserter, which seems pretty subversive, but you only meet him once he’s getting back into the Agency’s good graces. (Not counting the disastrous prequel duology.) Plus, you know, in real life, he didn’t kill King Sila II, it was one of my people, and the Agency just wanted a book where a human killed him to make themselves look good. Everybody wanted Sila dead, but they were upset that magical beings killed him, I guess. They’re so scared of us just because we flay you if you steal a book from our library. I mean, don’t steal books, right? I can’t believe I have to say that.

I know that the first Dreiwick book--Blood and Booty--isn’t the greatest piece of writing, but I can still enjoy a piece of cheesy, fun writing for its own sake.

I’ve done so much in my life. Maybe I’ve lived a more interesting life than Dreiwick. I’ve eaten a lot more magical beings than him, that’s for sure. And I bet he never electrocuted zombies. Well, actually, he might’ve done that, but he never met the god of death, and he never made friends with anyone who cared about him as much as Two Rabbit and Merritt care about me, but it’s all thanks to Keroel the Elder’s epic novel that I got my start. So if you’re ever considering picking up a random nautical-themed fantasy adventure series like the ones the guy who made me up is selling, you know, go for it. I highly recommend it.

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Devil bureaucrat Essie Darkenchyl and her friends barely survived the jungle, but now they're going straight to Hell--AKA her hometown!

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“What’s happening now?” Two Rabbit shouted.

“Looks like some kind of sheep,” Merritt said.

Essie’s eyes shot open.

“Sheep?” Two Rabbit asked.

She still couldn’t move. She was staring at the sky again. Purple storm clouds.

“Essie?” the doctor asked. “Are you awake? You hear me? You’re bleeding to death! For Aro’s sake, let down that shield or aura or whatever you’re projecting.”

He was just out of sight. They were all out of sight. Essie desperately tried to sit, but it only made the storm clouds choke in on her faster.

“Whoa!” Connie said. “Those are some mean sheep.”

“Sand sheep?” Boon asked.

Their voices made her head throb. She tried to follow, but couldn’t. It sounded like nonsense.

“By Aro—the sheep stepped on that guy’s crotch!” Merritt shouted. “Please don’t say we’re being rescued by sheep.”

“That’s if they don’t attack us, too,” Boon said.

“Holy Mother,” Two Rabbit said. “I’ve never seen a sheep spit like that.”

“Ohhhh.” Essie smiled as much as she could. “Llamas.”

Then she passed out.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Zac Lindsey is an anthropologist and a linguist who focuses on the Maya people of Quintana Roo. Since childhood, he's had a not-so-secret love of weird, silly, and well-structured fantasy. When other people's parents were reading them picture books, his mom was reading him Terry Brooks. He typically writes hopeful and character-driven fantasy.

Today, he lives in Quintana Roo, Mexico with his wife, daughter, and various stray cats.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/z.lindsey_fiction/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61550498257222
Amazon (Book One): https://www.amazon.com/River-Against-Sea-Z-Lindsey-ebook/dp/B0CH3TW3YD/ref=sr_1_1
B&N (Book One): https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-river-against-the-sea-z-lindsey/1144077772

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Straight Browsing from the Library: Shushan Portal by Gloria Pearson-Vasey

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Gloria Pearson-Vasey is awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

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After her sister dies, Meara Deleaney invites her bereaved nephew, Jackson, to accompany her on a book tour to Canada's Atlantic provinces. Fearful of leaving the security of her apartment, Meara bolsters her courage by recalling the imaginary dragons she and her sister slew as children behind the hollyhock hedge.

As they travel in a motorhome from park to park and bookstore to bookstore, Meara and Jackson are unaware of the manipulating forces intent on preventing their return home. They do, however, realize they are being stalked and therefore welcome the company of another touring author, criminology professor Bartholomew Wolfe.

A long-standing professional relationship between the authors builds to romance and a persuasive invitation to seek shelter at the professor's lodge. However, to reach the lodge, Meara—now accompanied by her nephew, niece and mother—unsuspectingly travels through a portal which exits in a future dimension near a fortress.

From there, the family is escorted under guard through dangerous territory to a lodge where metaphorical dragons lie in wait, and security comes at a price.

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The captain of the Waterbug announced they had left the Kingdom of the Great Lakes and crossed into the Territories of the Dúns. There the amphibious ship extended its legs and climbed an embankment where their next conveyance awaited them…

Within minutes of leaving the river behind, Gabe informed them they had come up against the invisi-barrier surrounding Ravensglen.

“As the name implies, an invisi-barrier cannot be seen, but it’s impenetrable to outsiders,” said Gabe.

They penetrated the barrier and passed through the west gate of Ravensglen, not far from the quarantine hut. The hut was a charming sod-covered cabin with round windows which Gabe opened to admit fresh forest breezes and scents.

“Are we safe here?” asked Meara, peering into the surrounding trees.

“You are completely safe within the boundaries of Ravensglen,” said Gabe.

It was then that the youngsters noticed them loping fluidly toward them.

“Look at the dragons!” shouted Penny. “One, two, three, four, five!”

“I think those are wolves,” said Jackson, his eyes widening.

By now, everyone was at the windows, peering out to get a good look at the canines. Large and magnificent, with grey coats tinted with white and buff, the wolves encircled the cabin, tails wagging and eyes bright with excitement.

Meara was mesmerized by the largest wolf, which regarded her with pale green eyes. Then it turned away and, followed by the others, disappeared into the trees.

“Even if those aren’t dragons, we could still be behind the hollyhock hedge,” said Penny hopefully.

“I believe we are,” said Meara.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Gloria Pearson-Vasey weaves contemporary issues into her novels, and likes a story - be it literary fiction, historical fantasy or science fiction - to be authentic and end on a note of hope.

A member of The Writers' Union of Canada, Pearson-Vasey has also penned non-fiction books on autism and pilgrimage.

The author feels blessed for experiencing the joy and chaos of merging child raising with career, camping, travel and pets.

She lives in a picturesque Ontario town, and enjoys reading, music, country drives and time with family and friends.

https://gloriapearsonvasey.com
https://www.facebook.com/gpvwrites
https://x.com/rvwriter
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6517389.Gloria_Pearson_Vasey

PURCHASE LINKS FOR SHUSHAN PORTAL

https://amazon.com/dp/1779417861
https://amazon.ca/dp/1779417861
https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/shushan-portal-behind-the-hollyhock-hedge/9781779417862.html
https://www.booktopia.com.au/search.ep?keywords=9781779417862
https://www.waterstones.com/book/9781779417862
https://www.abebooks.com/products/isbn/9781779417862

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Prophet's Death by Robert Creekmore

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Robert Creekmore will award a randomly drawn winner a $10 Amazon/BN gift card. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

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What is the favorite book you remember as a child?
-Where the Red Fern Grows

What is your favorite book today?
-The Bell Jar

Tell us about your current book in 10 words.
-Sapphic love interrupted, solved with violence, and the fourth dimension.

What are you reading right now?
-Blood Red Summer by Eyrk Pruitt

E-Reader or print? and why?
-Both. I like the feel of paper books, but they can be cumbersome to pack.

One book at a time or multiples?
-Only one fiction novel at a time. However, I often read plays or philosophy while reading fiction novels.

Dog-ear or bookmark? (don't worry—Librarian Judith won't hold it against you—much)
-Scrap paper between the pages.

Least favorite book you've read this year?
-The only author whose work I openly criticize is Nicholas Sparks’s. So, whatever that homophobe put out this year.

Favorite book you've read this year?
-A Meeting in the Devil’s House, by Richard Dansky

Favorite place to read?
-Outside

Favorite genre?
-Sci-fi, Horror, Thriller

Do you loan your books?
-Yes. My mother-in-law needs to return some of them, however.

Favorite book to recommend?
-Slaughter House Five, The Bell Jar, The Plague

How do you keep your books organized?
-On multiple bookshelves, as well as boxes because I’m out of room on my shelves.

Re-reader or not?
-Yes

Keep books or give them away?
-Would Gollum give up the ring?

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Death-cult leader Joseph Proffit has met his end! Along with him perishes the secret method for manufacturing indigo, the substance that imbued him with godlike abilities.

To the dismay of Naomi’s family, she succumbed to the injuries Joseph dealt her during their final battle atop the abandoned Coast Guard station, Frying Pan Tower, thirty miles off the North Carolina coast.

Both of their bodies were lost at sea when the one-hundred-foot-tall structure crumbled during Tropical Storm Gabriel.

Naomi’s beloved companions escaped aboard her dive boat, along with Joseph’s final victim, who is on the verge of death.

In the aftermath, Naomi’s family has no choice but to rebuild their lives in hiding, fearing reprisal from the handful of remaining Apostle loyalists.

Soon, their secret, dormant conflict will be thrust onto the world stage by a wealthy benefactor who funnels his personal hatred and unfounded grievances into throngs of ignorant followers.

Is this the end of Naomi’s family? Without her, how will they survive?

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He guides the boat between the two wooden bunks of the boat lift. Nate fights his way onto the dock through the sheets of rain blasting sideways into his face. He activates the hydraulics. The lift pulls the boat out of the water and level with the dock.

The three of them drag Malcolm off the boat before Nate lifts it higher to avoid the rising water.

Exhausted after moving Malcolm from the dock to the side door, the three can go no further and lie him on his side atop the sofa in front of the picture window.

“We have to call home,” Nate says.

“Telling someone that their spouse is dead isn’t something you do over the phone,” Herschel replies.

“More urgently,” Rebecca interjects, “we have to get electrolytes into Malcolm. He drank plenty of water before passing out, so he’s not in imminent danger of thirsting to death. To regain some level of consciousness, we need to get something like Pedialyte in him.

But, no stores will be open in this storm.” “Would powdered Gatorade work?” Nate asks.

“Yeah,” she responds.

Nate gets up and begins rummaging through Naomi’s kitchen junk drawer. He excavates an old plastic container, half-filled with clumpy orange Gatorade powder. Nate mixes up a batch inside a large plastic cup with a flexible straw. Malcolm mumbles and occasionally opens his eyes. When he does, they encourage him to drink. Within the hour, he’s holding the cup himself. His eyes begin to regain life. He looks around, saying, “Where is the other woman?” “She didn’t make it,” Rebecca answers.

A wave of melancholy washes across his exhausted face.

“The sooner we leave, the better,” Nate says.

“Will he make the week-long boat trip back to Northern Virginia?” Rebecca asks.

“No. That’s why I’m going to take Tiffany’s Corolla.”

“They’ll follow you,” Herschel says to Nate.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Robert Creekmore is from a rural farming community in Eastern North Carolina.

He attended North Carolina State where he studied psychology. While at university, he was active at the student radio station. There, he fell in love with punk rock and its ethos.

Robert acquired several teaching licenses in special education. He was an autism specialist in Raleigh for eight years. He then taught for four years in a small mountain community in western North Carolina.

During his time in the mountains, he lived with his wife Juliana in a remote primitive cabin built in 1875. While there, he grew most of his own food, raised chickens, worked on a cattle farm, as well as participated in subsistence hunting and fishing.

Eventually, the couple moved back to the small farming community where Robert was raised.

Annoyed with the stereotype of the southeastern United States as a monolith of ignorance and hatred, he wanted to bring forth characters from the region who are queer and autistic. They now hold up a disinfecting light to the hatred of the region’s past and to those who still yearn for a return to ways and ideas that should have long ago perished.

Robert’s first traditionally published novel, Prophet’s Debt, was a Manly Wade Wellman Literary Award Finalist.

His second, Prophet’s Lamentation, was a Lambda Literary recommendation for July 2023.

Website: https://www.robertcreekmore.com/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/AuthorCreekmore
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Prophets-Death-Robert-Creekmore/dp/1962308162/ref=sr_1_1

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Straight Browsing from the Library: Playtime Clothes by Kim MacLean

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Kim MacLean will award a randomly drawn winner a $15 Amazon/BN gift card. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

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The young boy's room is an undeniable mess. Did he actually clean his room, as he is telling his mom? Or do his clothes come to life and play?! They are, after all, playtime clothes. Is he learning a lesson to tell the truth and be accountable, as we all do in life? Or is it a world of make believe? It is for you to enjoy while you decide.<

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MEET THE AUTHOR

Kim MacLean was inspired to be creative while she and her little girls made their own fun inside their home on long, cold winter days. Her girls sat for hours painting and gluing crafts into works of art on paper. Oh, the rows and rows of finished masterpieces drying on the floor while Kim sat and wrote! And there were the hundreds of books that they read and enjoyed together that further inspired creativity and an adult love of children's books!

Tia Bates is an artist, illustrator, and storyteller from London, Ontario. She is inspired by the beautiful illustrations she grew up looking at in children's books just like Playtime Clothes, the first children's book she has illustrated! Currently pursuing a master's degree in fine art, Tia's personal artwork is all about the stories we tell.

Amazon: https://amazon.com/dp/0228883547
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/playtime-clothes-kim-maclean/1143163085
Book Depository: https://www.bookdepository.com/Playtime-Clothes-Kim-Maclean/9780228883548

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Straight Browsing from the Library: My Second Life by Simon Yeats

 

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Simon Yeats is awarding a $25 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

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We all have two lives. We only get to experience living in the second after we realize we only have just one.

I have my first real scare in life when I get attacked by a kangaroo when I am seven. My first brush with the cliff-face edge of death comes when I am 12. My dad drives the family down the dangerous Skipper’s Canyon dirt road in New Zealand in a rented minivan.

Including the occasion I am almost involved in two different plane flight crashes, in the same night, there have been at least a half dozen more occasions when I have been within a moment’s inattention of being killed.

However, none of those frightening incidents compare to what I experience after my son is abducted.

This memoir is the story of how I used the traumatic experiences of my life to give me strength to forge on during a 13 year fight to be a father to my son.

What did it take for me to get to my second life?
It took me to truly understand what fear is.

READ AN EXCERPT

As I cross the hotel lobby floor towards the elevator, a man approaches me and addresses me by name.

Oh god, not again. I know what this is. Another process server who is going to hand me court documents to tell me I am now being sued for refusing to follow my ex-wife’s demands to buy my son another cell phone.

That would have been far more preferable.

The man leads me over to the couches in the hotel lobby, and we sit. He speaks only Portuguese so that I can only understand some of what he says. So, I use Google translate so I can fully understand what is going on.

His name is Michael.

The man is not from the court.

He is on the direct opposite side of the law, as it turns out.

He is a killer for hire.

My ex-wife has hired his services.

What? Right now, I know I am sitting in bizarro world.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Simon Yeats has lived nine lives, and by all estimations, is fast running out of the number he has left. His life of globetrotting the globe was not the one he expected to lead. He grew up a quiet, shy boy teased by other kids on the playgrounds for his red hair. But he developed a keen wit and sense of humor to always see the funnier side of life.

With an overwhelming love of travel, a propensity to find trouble where there was none, and being a passionate advocate of mental health, Simon’s stories will leave a reader either rolling on the floor in tears of laughter, or breathing deeply that the adventures he has led were survived.

No author has laughed longer or cried with less restraint at the travails of life.


Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0CBNQLSPW/about
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@authoryeats
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authoryeats

Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/My-SECOND-Life-Simon-Yeats-ebook/dp/B0CB4LCCPN/ref=sr_1_1

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Straight Browsing from the Library: Dungeon of Horrors by Hawk MacKinney

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. A randomly drawn winner will receive a $20 Amazon/BN GC. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

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The bank’s newest Trust Officer Terri Stanley prepares the requested department’s internal audit. Finding puzzling inconsistencies and a jumble of misappropriations and unexplained offshore accounts, she follows protocol and immediately punches in the listed number for the Executor-Trustee, Craige Ingram.

Wealthy land owner/parttime PI Craige Ingram reaches the file back to homicide Lt. Grayson MacGerald after finishing a quick read-through of the preliminary forensic report from Coroner Fred Dinkins on the unexpected death of bank President Royce Sedgewicke. Dinkins’ meticulous autopsy findings verify that a massive apparent heart attack was not from natural causes, confirming what these longtime SEAL buddies suspected.

When Ingram gets a call from Terri Stanley, the bank’s attractive, newly-hired Trust Officer, wanting to discuss in confidence possible account irregularities discovered during her audit, he never imagines the twisted world of money and greed that would involve a psychopath’s trail of bloody body parts strewn along Ingram's river property, or that Terri and her son would disappear.

Confronted by a race against time, Ingram fears that Terri might become one more on the list of dead who crossed a twisted mind bent on thrill-kills and retribution.

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A testy Barry Jamison Peters sat at his desk in the bank, nervously folding and refolding a once immaculate handkerchief. At forty-two, Barry looked haggard way beyond his years—the prep school and college gridiron hunk with a perpetual chip on his shoulder long gone to flabby chunkiness, a once pleasant face now drawn. Like he’d done all his life, he waited, listening as the workday ended. The ebony-glass high rise became still and quiet as the five o’clock hired help scurried to the suburban parkway. Breaking routine attracted attention, and he sure didn’t want that.

Math whiz nerd Barry liked numbers. “You can trust numbers,” he once told a new teller. Barry didn’t mind working late; the solitude was warm and familiar. He glanced at his Carrara marble clock that graced his orderly desk. “Thirty more minutes,” he murmured.

At breakfast that morning, he played with a slice of dry scorched toast. His puffy eyes in a sagging face buried in the morning paper hardly glanced in the direction of his frumpy wife when he said, “I have to work late again.”

She tugged at the waist of her soiled sloppy nightgown. In more ways than looks, she matched him dull for dull. “What’s so different?” she said grumpily. “When you’re around, we never talk.”

In that moment his look glittered into the hate-side of disgust. She’d served him divorce papers three times, stopping when her checking account bottomed out. She never paid any of her lawyers, and the last one lost the papers in the bank’s parking deck where the idle-talk crowd found them.

At the half hour, on the mark, Barry took the elevator to the main floor. His steps quickened through the red marble foyer with its malachite green columns and tall, ornate clock beneath the enormous oil painting of the Steamship Company’s first steam locomotive. The duplicate master keys seared his sweaty palm. He unlocked the steel-barred grill into the safety deposit vault, inserted both slender keys and turned them at the same time. He pulled out the long, flat box, raised the lid, pocketed the small velvet satchel from inside, replaced the box, removed the keys and made sure the grill locked behind him. His heart drubbed faster… anxious to get to Royce’s secret place and the vintage collection of Cabernets in the cellar beneath the street. He took the elevator to the fourth floor, then the parking garage connector and the fire stairs down to the street. He scuttled across McIntosh, turned down the narrow alley with its unused railroad siding, brushed beneath the tangle of overgrown Woodbine Creeper and slipped the new key into his new lock. Once inside, he made sure the door locked behind him. The stale, dank air closed in around him. He was safe. No one could find him there.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Internationally acclaimed author and public speaker, Hawk MacKinney began writing mysteries for his school newspapers. Following graduation, he served in the US Navy for over 20 years. While serving as a Navy Commander, he also had a career as a full-time faculty member at several major state medical facilities. He earned two postgraduate degrees with studies in languages and history and has taught postgraduate courses in both the United States and Jerusalem, Israel.

In addition to professional articles and texts on fetal and adult anatomy, Hawk has authored several novels that have received national and international recognition. Moccasin Trace, a historical novel, was nominated for the prestigious Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction and the Writers Notes Book Award.

Known for his terrifying suspense and unique “Southron” dialog, Hawk has published five novels in the Moccasin Hollow Mysteries: Hidden Chamber of Death, Westobou Gold, Curse of the Ancients, Dead Gold, and Blood of the Dragonfly.

In a change of direction, Hawk has also published three books in The Cairns of Sainctuarie science fiction series: The Bleikovat Event, Volume I; The Missing Planets, Volume II; and The Inanna Phantom, Volume III.

His latest work is a series called the Moccasin Trace Mysteries. Dungeon of Horrors is the first book in the series, and the second book – Blood in the Shadows – is in development.

Website: https://www.hawkmackinneyauthor.com/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Dungeon-Horrors-Hawk-MacKinney-ebook/dp/B0D6BP1Y27/ref=sr_1_1

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