Birthdays: Mary Kingsley (1862), Conrad Richter (1890), Arna Bontemps (1902), Richard Howard (1929), Dalene Matthee (1938), Mollie Katzen (1950), Colin Channer (1963), Emily Gould (1981)

Conrad Richter won the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for “The Town”

Richard Howard won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for “Untitled Subjects”

Quote: “Give your teachers the respect they deserve, because they are the ones who can help you get where you need to go.” – Richard Howard

 “To some extent the shorter the writing assignment is, the harder it is to accomplish, and a blurb is 200 words max.” – Emily Gould

Tip: If an agent or publisher is charging you to print your book—run in the other direction. You should not have to pay, unless you’re getting the printing done by yourself.

Jumpstart: One Saturday in the fall, it finally happened… (use: peppermint, library, clock)

CRUEL LESSONS by Randy Overbeck

Fiction, Mystery

4****

Blurb: On a school camping trip, fifth graders experiment with a dangerous new hallucinogen and die in a horrific accident, their deaths shattering the quiet town. Assistant Superintendent Ken Parks, hoping to redeem a fatal mistake from his past, grasps the opportunity to conduct the district investigation of how students are getting the drugs. Almost before he begins, the cops make a stunning arrest. But Parks battles on, convinced the real pusher is still out there, poisoning more kids until he receives an anonymous if he continues, those close to him will pay. Is Parks willing to risk those he loves for a chance at redemption?

Thoughts: Mr. Overbeck writes very good mysteries and this one is no exception. He uses great imagery to put you right in the action. His characters are well-developed and realistic. This story is set in 1995 so you have to realize that when reading because of the technology being used. It begins with the drug use and deaths of four young boys on a school outing. Their teacher, Stacy, is arrested for being the one who supplied the drugs. The assistant superintendent, Ken, is tasked with finding out who else is involved. Meanwhile, Ken’s marriage is in trouble because of the time he spends on the investigation. Between Ken, his police friend Bart, and a custodian, the investigation gets intense. There is a good ending, but there are also several threads left dangling so I’m quite sure there will be more with these characters.

What I liked: the imagery, the characters, the story. All very well done. And a good ending.

What I didn’t like: the dangling threads. But knowing this author, I know they will be addressed in possible later stories. 

Recommendation: Recommended. 

Disclaimer: Disclosure of Material: I received a final and/or advanced reader copy of this book with the hope that I will leave my unbiased opinion. I was not required to leave a review, positive or otherwise, and my opinions are just that… My Opinions. I am posting this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”

Four kids dead. Can Assistant Superintendent Ken Parks unmask the drug dealer poisoning his students before more kids die?

Blurb: On a school camping trip, fifth graders experiment with a dangerous new hallucinogen and die in a horrific accident, their deaths shattering the quiet town. Assistant Superintendent Ken Parks, hoping to redeem a fatal mistake from his past, grasps the opportunity to conduct the district investigation of how students are getting the drugs. Almost before he begins, the cops make a stunning arrest. But Parks battles on, convinced the real pusher is still out there, poisoning more kids until he receives an anonymous threat: if he continues, those close to him will pay. Is Parks willing to risk those he loves for a chance at redemption?

Buy Links:

https://books2read.com/u/4Ne56z

The author:

Dr. Randy Overbeck is a best-selling author of the award-winning series, The Haunted Shores Mysteries, the three entries earning such national awards as the Gold Award from Literary Titan, Mystery of the Year from ReaderViews, and Best Book from Chanticleer. He hosts a new podcast, “Great Stories about Great Storytellers,” which reveals the unusual backstories of famous authors, directors and poets. He is also a speaker in much demand, sharing his multi-media presentations, “Things Still Go Bump in the Night”  and “A Few Favorite Haunts” with audiences all over the country. Dr. Overbeck is also an active member of the literary community, contributing to a writers’ critique group, serving as a mentor to emerging writers and participating in writing conferences such as Sleuthfest, Killer Nashville and the Midwest Writers Workshop.

More info about his novels, programs and podcast can be found at his website www.authorrandyoverbeck.com .

randyoverbeck@authorrandyoverbeck.com

513-633-2838

SOCIAL MEDIA CONTACTS

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorrandyoverbeck

Twitter: https://twitter.com/OverbeckRandy/media

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorrandyoverbeck/

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/randy-overbeck

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Randy-Overbeck/e/B07QQHW7DM?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1658371317&sr=8-1

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4825632.Randy_Overbeck

Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1924616/10983135

Buy Links:

https://books2read.com/u/4Ne56z

As a member of the Mystery Writers of America, Dr. Overbeck is an active member of the literary community, contributing to a writers’ critique group, serving as a mentor to emerging writers and participating in writing conferences such as Sleuthfest, Killer Nashville and the Midwest Writers Workshop. When he’s not writing or researching his next exciting novel or sharing his presentation “Things Still Go Bump in the Night,” he’s spending time with his incredible family of wife, three children (and their spouses) and seven wonderful grandchildren.

Birthdays: R.K. Narayan (1906), Claude Simon (1913), James Clavell (1924), Sheila Walsh (1928), Harold Pinter (1930), Lily Tuck (1938), James Marshall (1942), Frederick Barthelme (1943), Robert D San Souci (1946), Daniel San Souci (1948), Nora Roberts (1950), Rumiko Takahashi (1957), Jonathan Littel (1967)

Claude Simon received the 1985 Nobel Prize in Literature

Harold Pinter won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature

Lily Tuck won the 2004 Nat’l Book Award for Fiction for “The News from Paraguay”

Quote: “Life is not only full of sound and fury. It also has butterflies, flowers, art.” – Claude Simon

“All stories have a beginning, a middle, and an ending, and if they’re any good, the ending is a beginning.” – James Clavell

Tip: Be sure you keep good financial records for the IRS. Yes, you will have to pay taxes on your royalties. But they can be offset by your expenses (sorry, but coffee at Starbucks doesn’t count).

Jumpstart: Pick ten random words from the dictionary (close your eyes, fan the pages, and point – that’s one word). Use these in a scene.

Title: The Cane, The Puzzle, and Magic

Author: Vicky Burkholder

Genre:  Urban Fantasy Romance

Length: 293 pages

Word Count: 89802

Publisher: The Wild Rose Press

Release Date: October 9, 2023

Edition/Formats Available In: eBook .epub and .pdf, paperback

Digital Price: $3.99

Paperback Price: $18.99

ISBN: Digital: 978-1-5092-5104-9

Paperback: 978-1-5092-5103-2

Tagline: It’s never easy to fight a friend. It’s even harder to kill one.

Blurb/Synopsis: Facing down an ancient evil, special agent Elizabeth St. John is outnumbered, outgunned, and outmatched. Local cop Kaeden Pike is the perfect choice to help her but letting him—or anyone—into her life and heart is the most difficult challenge she’s ever faced. Kaeden has never found the one person who fit him, until now. But how can he convince Liz that they make the perfect pair, especially when the end of the world is coming? Someone has to gather the forces of good to win this fight, but when Liz accepts the role, she finds that being alone isn’t a choice she has to make. Almost losing Kaeden to the evil who already took the only other person she’s ever trusted convinces her to open her heart and let him in…where he belongs.

Book Links

The Wild Rose Press: https://www.thewildrosepress.com/bookauthor/vicky-burkholder

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Cane-Puzzle-Magic-Vicky-Burkholder-ebook/dp/B0CDJ55FQG

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1143862796?ean=9781509251032

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/195596272-the-cane-the-puzzle-and-magic

BookBub:  https://www.bookbub.com/authors/vicky-burkholder

Google Books: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Vicky_Burkholder

iTunes/Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/gb/book/the-cane-the-puzzle-and-magic/id6456978093

Author Information

As her alter-ego, Vicky has multiple homes all over the universe. She looks human – for the most part – but when she starts writing about characters being able to move things or flicking fire from their fingertips, or changing the course of rivers, people tend to get a little freaked out. She found the one guy out there in the universe who loves her for who she is and they’ve been together forever and raised four wonderful (now) adults. Her career includes work as a technical writer/editor, a stringer for the local newspaper, and an editor and copy editor for various publishers. At various times in her life, she has been a teacher, a secretary, a short-order cook, a computer specialist, a DJ, and a librarian. When not editing or writing, she can be found in the kitchen creating gluten free goodies for her family.

Author Links

Website:  http://www.vicky-burkholder.com

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Vicky-Burkholder

Goodreads Page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1264928.Vicky_Burkholder

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Vicky-Burkholder-535739543163598/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/vickyburkholder

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/vicky-burkholder

For Other Works by Vicky Burkholder

(Please be sure to stop by her Website to see all of her works)

 

Excerpt

The knowledge of what might happen pounded into her brain. The psychic vibes coming from the sheet were stronger than before. Bannig was coming. And soon. She laid her head back down.

“I really do not need this. You hear me? I don’t want to do this anymore. Can’t you find someone else? I’m sure you have other agents who can take care of him.”

The paper hung there, like a stern teacher frowning at a recalcitrant student. She’d seen the look often enough to recognize the expression even from a sheet of paper. Silent and noncompromising. The letter floated down to hang in front of her again, and she resisted the urge to stick her tongue out. Barely.

“Fine. All right. I’ll take care of him. Where do I need to go?” She looked inside the envelope for

directions. Empty. There were always directions, but not this time. No notes, no map, nothing.

“You planning to tell me where I need to go?”

The paper didn’t move.

“All right. Fine. Be that way.” She pricked her thumb with her blade and smeared the drop of blood over the pad of her thumb then pressed the bloodied digit against the bottom of the paper. The crimson print disappeared, as always, and the paper dropped into her lap. Then she saw a new line of writing at the bottom of the page. A line that hadn’t been there before and consisted of only two words, but those two words turned her blood to ice.

Go home.

Birthdays: John Cowper Powys (1872), Walter Lord (1917), Frank Herbert (1920), Faith Ringgold (1930), Michael Korda (1933), William Corlett (1938), Harvey Pekar (1939), R.L. Stine (1943), Benjamin Cheever (1948), Steve Coll (1958), Bret Lott (1958), Claire Messud (1966), Jaclyn Moriarty (1968), Lincoln Michel (1982),

Walter Lord is best known for his account of the Titanic’s sinking “A Night to Remember”

Frank Herbert’s “Dune” series is a science fiction classic

R.L. Stine is an author of children’s horror stories like “Goosebumps”

Steven Coll won two Pulitzer Prizes. One of them for the 2004 book “Ghost Wars”

Quote: “Many adults feel that every children’s book has to teach them something…. My theory is a children’s book… can be just for fun.” ― R.L. Stine

 “Everything I write is different, so I can’t really generalise about where I begin. But character is very important to me – it’s why I write, I think; that and language. And if you really know a character, then you figure out how they would behave in a given situation. And the plot comes out of that, really.” – Claire Messud

Tip: There are lots of reasons to quit writing. Come up with reasons to keep going.

Jumpstart: Finish this: The day I disappeared… (using: cemetery, weed, greenhouse)

Birthdays: James Whitcomb Riley (1849), Alice Dalgliesh (1893), Helen MacInnes (1907), William Zinsser (1922), Amiri Baraka (1934), Thomas Keneally (1935), Clive James (1939), Anita Shreve (1946), Diane Ackerman (1948), Kevin Boyle (1960), Dan Savage (1964), Paula McLain (1965), Sherman Alexie (1966)

James Whitcomb Riley’s 1885 poem “Little Orphant Annie” was the basis for the character Orphan Annie.

Alice Dalgliesh was a three-time winner of the Newbery Award with books like “The Courage of Sarah Noble”

Thomas Keneally’s book “Schindler’s Ark” won the 1982 Booker Award and was eventually made into the movie “Schindler’s List”

Quote: “Libraries change lives. They are the soul of a people.” – Diane Ackerman

“I imagine myself in (a character’s) shoes. I see what they see. I hear what they hear. It’s a time-consuming process, but the more you dig, the better the character will be.” Anita Shreve

Tip: Start your story with a bang. A dynamic first line draws readers in. Make something happen.

Jumpstart: Pick a classified ad from the paper and write a story about it. Who wrote the ad? Why? What is it for?

Birthdays: Albert J. Beveridge (1862), Caroline Gordon (1895), Elizabeth Gray Vining (1902), Thor Heyerdahl (1914), Stanley Ellin (1916), David Brin (1950), Ellen Kushner (1955), Joseph Finder (1958)

Albert Beveridge won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography for “The Life of John Marshall”

Elizabeth Vining won the 1943 Newbery Award for “Adam of the Road”

David Brin won multiple awards for his science fiction, most of which were set in the “Uplift Universe”

Ellen Kushner started her career by writing “Choose-Your-Own” adventures.

Quote: “It is said that power corrupts, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.” – David Brin

“The novelist is entitled to use every trick of deceit and underhandedness at his or her control.” – Caroline Gordon

Tip: Make lists of things you associate with a particular sense. For instance: soft=cotton balls, down quilts, baby’s cheeks, etc. Use these lists to enhance your writing.

Jumpstart: It’s show-and-tell day at school, but, rather than “show” everyone what you have, you have to tell them about it. Pick an object and write a description of it so that others who can’t see it will understand what it is.

Birthdays: Jonathan Edwards (1703), Denis Diderot (1713), John Addington Symonds (1840), Frederic Morton (1924), Flann O’Brien (1911), Stetson Kennedy (1916), Bil Keane (1922), Louise Fitzhugh (1928), Michael Morpurgo (1943), Bill James (1949), Edward P. Jones (1951), Clive Barker (1952), Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958), David Shannon (1960), Rupi Kaur (1992), Yvonne Battle-Felton (?)

Bil Keane is best known for his comic strip “The Family Circus”

Louise Fitzhugh is best known for “Harriet the Spy”

Edward P. Jones won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for “The Known World”

Quote: “A hug is like a boomerang – you get it back right away.” ― Bil Keane

“By and large, horror fiction is the most difficult to domesticate because part of the point is that it’s one step ahead – or behind – everybody else’s taste. And I’m not really convinced I’d like it to change. There’s something very healthy about horror fiction being always a little bit on the outside. It’s the wild-dog genre.” – Clive Barker

Tip: When sending a query letter, be sure you have the editor or agent’s name spelled correctly. And be sure you have the right version of your story attached.

Jumpstart: While up in the attic, you find something in your father’s belongings that no child should ever find of their parents, no matter how old. What did you find? What do you do?

Ice fog descends upon Dickens, Alberta, growing thicker and thicker until Heidi Crawford can no longer see the coniferous forest and snow-capped mountains outside the windows of her Jeep. A huge four-legged shape moves in the mist. She slams on the brakes and squeezes her eyes shut.

When Heidi opens her eyes, the fog is gone, but so is her life as she knows it. Instead of forest and snow, she’s on a single street in a tiny town, trapped in a scorching hot desert away from her daughter Emma. And she isn’t alone. Fifteen strangers are trapped in Ghost Town and soon, they begin disappearing, one by one.

Michelle Godard-Richer’s INTO THE FOG is an unputdownable, chilling isolation thriller about a single mother separated from her daughter and trapped with fourteen strangers — one of whom is a killer.

https://www.books2read.com/IntotheFog

Michelle Godard-Richer is an award-winning thriller and romance author living in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Canada. With her degree in Criminology, she writes edge-of-your-seat, suspenseful stories with strong protagonists and diabolical villains.

www.michellegodardricherauthor.com

amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0B7KQ9NQ3/about

Goodreads: Michelle Godard-Richer

Twitter: @MGodardRicher

Facebook: Michelle Godard-Richer Author

Instagram: michellegodardricherauthor

TikTok: @mgodardricher