BWL Publishing's July Releeases and July free read

BWL PUBLISHING'S JULY RELEASES

click the book covers for book and purchase details

A Taylor Madison Mystery - the Series - 2nd Edition

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 July's free read is from Vanessa C. Hawkins

The Curious Case of Simon Todd

Visit the BWL website for links to free download

http://bookswelove.net

A Greek Adventure and Research by Diane Scott Lewis

Recently we took a trip to Greece, where I met my husband many years ago while stationed at a navy base (closed in 1990).  We attended a reunion of former navy personnel stationed at the base in the waterfront town of Nea Makri. The famous town of Marathon is a few miles to the north.

Author and Husband, navy base front gate

Before we left the U. S. I had an epiphany to write a novel set in Greece, ala Mary Stewart. She wrote so many wonderful romantic suspense novels set in Greece, including my favorite The Moon Spinners. My story, A Spark to the Ashes, takes place in 1955. A running away (from whom?) American woman with a small child seeks employment with a burned-out Englishman, to research ancient Greek pottery. She needs shelter yet desires freedom, he dislikes children and had expected a 'male' assistant. He's scarred from his experience in WWII. Both their pasts will haunt them and put their lives in peril.

I scoured the countryside to get my geography correct, now much research on the era remains.


Cape Sounio, Greece



It was sad to see the neglect of the base (where I married my husband at the base chapel), but wonderful to connect to former Nea Makri buddies, and meet new ones.

Former navy base, Nea Makri, Greece

Greece has a poor economy, but it's a beautiful country with much to offer. The restaurants in Nea Makri are fantastic, with fresh seafood and views of the gulf that flows into the Aegean Sea. The people are friendly, and most speak enough English to make you comfortable.

But to speak of writing--soon my Revolutionary War novel, Her Vanquished Land, will be available from BWL (September), then I dive into the Greece of 1955. Good thing I love research!

To purchase my novels at Amazon or All Markets: Click HERE 
 

 

 

Just a sampling of my novels, mystery, suspense, romance, adventure, with strong female heroines, mostly set in the later eighteenth century.

 

For further information on me and my books, please visit my website: www.dianescottlewis.org

 Diane Scott Lewis grew up in California, traveled the world with the navy, edited for magazines and an on-line publisher. She lives with her husband in Pennsylvania.

Mandatory Sex Practice by Stuart R. West

Now that I have your undivided attention with that title (sorry, sorry, sorry, etc...), please allow me to explain...

Clickity-click for laughs and mystery fun!

Recently, my awesome mother-in-law sent us a post-holiday card. Within it was a personalized message to me.

"Stuart," it read, "you better start practicing your sex--will expect entertainment in the nursing home."

Huh.

After I rolled my tongue up off the floor and tucked it back into my mouth, I reread the card. Yep. Same thing.

What the...

The ramifications of the note were mind-boggling. And not even a bit cryptic. Kinda an order from her.

Which begs the question: what in the world have my wife and her mom been talking about? Furthermore, what does my mother-in-law mean by "practice?"

I suppose I could use a little boning up on my sex technique. But honestly, I'd rather not have my mother-in-law as teacher.

And what kind of nursing home are we talking about here where sex is used to entertain the crowd? I imagine the facility has quite a long waiting list. (I'd better get signed up now.)

After the fireworks in my head fizzled out, I took a closer look at the note. "Stuart," it read a bit differently this time, "you better start practicing your sax..."

Ooooooohhhhhhh...... Okay. That's better.

Which is my long-winded way of getting to the point. Often (okay, rarely), people ask me where I get my ideas. Nothing's funnier than real people in real situations. This will undoubtedly end up in one of my Zach and Zora comical mysteries as do many people I meet or situations I hear about.

I'm always on the look-out for comedy gold. I mean, you can't make half of this stuff up. At restaurants, I listen. My wife calls it eavesdropping. I call it "artistic license." She also warns everyone we meet to be careful because you could end up in one of my books. Duly warned!

So...have you heard the one about the dumb male stripper and his sharp detective sister working together to solve murders? No? Well, you're late to the party! Click here already for the first book in the series! 

My year in Books Janet Lane Walters #BWLPublishing #MFRWAuthor #Books #Romance

Another Year

Every July, I sit and try to decide what I’ve accomplished during the past year. For many people, their year begins on January 1^st but mine begins on July 17^th. So I decided to look at what I’ve accomplished as a writer. Not talking about big bucks earned but about the books I’ve been able to write.

 

Forgotten Dreams will be out soon. It’s part of a series and I didn’t realize how long it’s been since I last wrote a book in this series. I believe that was 2015. How did I wait so long but that’s because there were so many other books pushing at my boundaries. There are only 7 books to write in this series so perhaps I’ll concentrate on them this coming year.

Murder and Mint tea came out in audio this year and I was pleased to see this. The book was one of my first and has done well for years. Glad to see it has a new life.

 

Finished up the Island of Fyre series and was a fun book to write since there were four dragons. I’m kind of partial to dragons especially when they talk.

 

This was the first of the ones published during my past year of writing. And finished a series Opposites in Love

Hosting a Teddy Bear Picnic, by J.C. Kavanagh

The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends
Short-listed for Best Young Adult Book 2018 at The Word Guild, Canada 

I've never been to a Teddy Bear picnic. In fact, I didn't know there was such a thing. But when imagination is rampant and your two granddaughters are visiting from Ottawa for a week - well then, everything and anything that is entertaining comes into play.

The imagination of a child is beautiful to behold. Unfettered, it is limitless. Witnessing the unfolding of ideas gives me great joy and is a powerful reminder to tap my own imagination when it comes to writing. The adventures that take place in the playground of your mind can be shifted to real life. Ask any child and they will show you how it's done.

So our Teddy Bear picnic adventure began with a dress code: stripes. Paddy, the name of our big teddy, was too big to carry so we carted him around in a stroller. He was dressed in a striped shirt too. A light lunch was prepared (PB&J wraps, granola bars, grapes) and we headed outside and took a walk through the trails on our property. We had to stop regularly to give the bears a 'drink' of water. Of course, the girls had to have a drink too. We pretended the bears could talk and we held silly conversations with them. I stepped back in time and became a silly kid too.

Their visit became a refresher course for me in the art of creative thinking.

Sometimes we have to pretend our minds have no boundaries.

Because imagination is not just for kids.

J.C. Kavanagh

The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends (Book 2)
voted BEST Young Adult Book 2018, Critters Readers Poll and Best YA Book FINALIST at The Word Guild, Canada
AND
The Twisted Climb,
voted BEST Young Adult Book 2016, P&E Readers Poll

Novels for teens, young adults and adults young at heart

Email: author.j.c.kavanagh@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/J.C.Kavanagh

www.amazon.com/author/jckavanagh

Twitter @JCKavanagh1 (Author J.C. Kavanagh)

My Dream Vacation

With July and August come vacation season. For those parents working full-times jobs, these months offer the perfect time to get away from it all. The destinations vary: either trips to visit out-of-town family members, to a resort, or for the fortunate, an exotic locale. However, none of these match the imagination when it comes to a once-in-a-lifetime destination, the dream vacation.

So what is my dream vacation? Let me take the word “dream” literally. A couple of months back I had one of those vivid dreams that seem to last all night long, one that made me feel as if the waking world is the dream and no the other way around.

I boarded a jet from an unknown airport for a flight that lasted almost an entire day. The destination? A tiny island in the middle of a vast ocean; a place was so isolated that only a handful of people lived on it.

The island was remarkable. Cocooned by a light fog and a hushed isolation, it floated high in the southern seas, as if anchored in the mute white atmosphere. Surrounded by cold green waters, no trees grew on it. Besides a few humans, only penguin-like animals populated it. It was too distant to receive any type of radio or television signals.

But rather than dark, the island was a happy place. Despite a paucity of adults, the island was inhabited by many happy children who climbed its rocks and played on its beaches. Enormous whales floated about in the waters, constantly rising from the depths and snorting huge plumes of water.

It took me several minutes to get my bearings when I woke up, the dream being so life-like. I wandered through my quotidian duties that day but the dream did not leave me. When curiosity could no longer be contained, I checked a world map on the computer, searching for remote islands that may resemble the one in my dream.

Several possibilities emerged but were quickly dismissed. The Galapagos felt remote enough, but iguanas and giant tortoises did not appear in my dream. Several islands of the South Pacific – Bora Bora and Tonga -- appeared on the screen as possibilities, but my dream island was far from a tropical paradise.

I finally entered “the most remote island in the world” in Google search. The answer popped up immediately: Tristan da Cunha, an eight-mile-wide island in the middle of the South Atlantic, whose closest mainland city, Cape Town, South Africa, lay 1,743 miles away. I couldn’t say with certainty that it matched the one in my dreams, but similarities existed. The island, dominated by a rocky volcano, is devoid of trees. Low-lying mists create a secluded, hazy setting. Rockhopper penguins nest on its shores.

Tristan Da Cunha

Unlike my dream, no airstrip exists. However, fishing boats from South Africa visit eight times a year. A trip to Tristan da Cunha is an exercise in patience and planning. About eighty families live there permanently. There are neither cell phones nor home internet service, but as a gesture to the modern world, one lonely internet café exists. It seems that the island is a paradise for children. The entire island, with neither predators nor crime, is a vast playground for children, who live in complete freedom.

I would love to visit Tristan da Cunha. Is it the island of my dreams? Obviously, I can’t tell but I did gather one more scrap of evidence. It seems that whales and dolphins swim the seas around it. Certainly, it’s a place for a dream vacation.

Mohan Ashtakala is the author of "Karma Nation."  

www.mohanashtakala.com

He is published by Books We Love. 

www.bookswelove.com

The earth laughs in flowers (quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson) ...by Sheila Claydon

Click here for my books at Books We Love

I haven't had much time to write this year. Instead, sadly, I have been helping friends whose loved ones were very sick, and who have now passed away. It's been a time of sadness and several funerals but, as is always the way when someone dies, the tears have been intermingled with laughter as the good times are remembered. This was especially the case yesterday.

It was the first secular funeral I had attended so I didn't know what to expect. What I got was a day of joy. The music, which was special to the family and the deceased, was joyful, as were the very personal speeches. Nobody wore black. Instead the women were in bright dresses and the men relaxed and tieless, in shirtsleeves. The sun was warm, birds sang and it wasn't at all difficult to imagine the deceased nodding his approval, his wonderful smile wide as he saw all his family and friends together, laughing as they remembered.

And the lovely display of yellow and red family flowers, glowing like a pile of jewels on top of the coffin, made me think of the language of flowers. Red roses for passion,  red tulips for true love,  lilies and poppies for sympathy in death, pink roses and hydrangea for gratitude, iris for faith and hope, lily-of-the-valley for sweetness and purity, they carry so much symbolism. Cultures differ so much too. What might be right for one country can be wrong for another. And it's not just countries, it can even be local. In some places in the UK it is thought to be unlucky to bring bluebells into a house, whereas it is fine in other areas. Tree blossom is a no no too, as is giving anyone a single daffodil. They must always be given in bunches.  Flower lore is endless, as is the pleasure flowers bring.

My mother was a florist, so I grew up with flowers, and although by the time I was a teenager we lived in an apartment, the balcony was still full of flowers from spring through to winter, and her enthusiasm has not only rubbed off onto me, it increases with every year.  Nothing gives me more pleasure than walking around my own garden checking every new shoot, or deadheading blooms past their prime so that others can replace them. And I love the difference the seasons bring. In the early spring everything is either primrose yellow or white, then comes the blue and purple season followed by  shades of pink from the palest rose to the deepest cerise. Later the yellows return, but now mixed with orange and scarlet, then it's the evergreens and a tracery of bare branches as winter takes over...not for long though. In January the first snowdrops appear, as do the hellebores, better known as Christmas roses, and then the pink camellias start to bud.

















Loving flowers as I do is one of the reasons I wrote Bouquet of Thorns. To me, it was like going back in time to when my mother was alive and I sometimes used to help her when she had to build displays or decorate an hotel. One of my fondest and most exciting memories is helping carry boxes and pots of flowers aboard the  ocean liners that used to dock in the port city of Southampton where I was born. It was long before the days of the modern cruise ship and ocean voyages took weeks instead of days. It  was a real event for many travellers and those with wealthy friends were sent off with huge bouquets. Once my job was done I was sent down to the galley where chefs would pile a plate high with food,  and then later sent me home with boxes of chocolates or a special desert which I had to sneak out.

Now, so many years older, I have been a passenger on cruise liners to many parts of the world, but none of them, however grand, have had that old fashioned elegance and grandeur of the ships of my distant past. Happy memories, whether they are of people or of events are so precious, and if they are garlanded with the memory of flowers, then they are even more so.