Kevin Brennan – update on a new collection of essays

Kevin Brennan has previously been featured on Reading Recommendations a number of times, as well as being an All-Star Author and on the list of
Reading Recommendations Revisited.

I don’t make any bones about it – Kevin Brennan is one of my very favourite authors writing today! So it’s always a pleasure to promote any new books he happens to publish, like this one right here …

In No Particular Order: A Memoir
by Kevin Brennan

It’s true that life is linear, but the living of it is all over the map. In this memoir-in-vignettes, novelist Kevin Brennan (Parts Unknown, Yesterday Road) examines his life the way memories occur in the wild: in no particular order. Whether it’s recalling high school humiliations, ups and downs in love and romance, or unique interactions with the human race at home and abroad, Brennan both entertains and moves the reader with moments of unexpected poignancy and full-tilt humor. In No Particular Order is a deconstructed memoir, like no other because it looks at life as it really is — a kaleidoscope of individual moments.

For more information about Kevin and his publications, as well as more about this new eBook, check out his blog, What the Hell.

Purchase a copy from:
Amazon

John W. Howell

John W. Howell

What is your latest release and what genre is it? I am re-releasing my first book My GRL due to my desire not to re-new my publisher’s contract. It is Thriller Fiction

Quick description: The first book in the John J. Cannon Trilogy where John J. Cannon, successful San Francisco lawyer, takes a leave of absence from the firm and buys a boat he names My GRL. He is unaware that his newly-purchased boat had already been targeted by a terrorist group. John’s first inkling of a problem is when he wakes up in the hospital where he learns he was found unconscious next to the dead body of the attractive young woman who sold him the boat in the first place. John now stands between the terrorists and the success of their mission.

Brief biography:
John began his writing as a full-time occupation after an extensive business career. His specialty is thriller fiction novels, but John also writes poetry and short stories. His first book, My GRL, introduces the exciting adventures of the book’s central character, John J. Cannon. The second Cannon novel, His Revenge, continues the adventure, while the final book in the trilogy, Our Justice, launched in September 2016. All books are available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.

John lives in Port Aransas, Texas, with his wife and their spoiled rescue pets.

Links to buy John’s book:
Amazon Author Page
Print edition
Kindle edition

John’s promo links:
Blog: Fiction Favorites
Facebook
Twitter
Authors db
LinkedIn
Google +
Goodreads

What are you working on now?
I am currently editing my next book titled Circumstances of Childhood and will be launching it in September of 2017. I have begun a yet unnamed thriller which will available in 2018.

John’s reading recommendation:
I have finished reading Letting Go Into Perfect Love by Gwendolyn Plano. The story of Gwen’s personal challenge is very uplifting.

Tina Faiz & Leanne Brown – Edmonton Cooks

Tina Faiz and Leanne Brown

What is your latest release and what genre is it? Edmonton Cooks – cookbook

Quick description: A sumptuous sampling of Edmonton’s thriving food scene from its top chefs and restaurants.

Brief biography:
Tina Faiz loves to ask questions and loves to eat. It’s no wonder this award-winning journalist’s insatiable curiosity (and appetite) helps her unearth stories about food as well as politics, design, art, and culture for newspapers and magazines across the country, including the Edmonton Journal, Calgary Herald, National Post, Ottawa Citizen, Vancouver Sun, and Montreal Gazette, among others, and in a regular food column for CBC Radio. She’s Western Living Magazine’s former Edmonton Editor and regularly judges food competitions in the city. When she’s not writing, she is co-owner and strategist at Big Pixel Creative, helping clients use digital communications for social good.

Leanne Brown is a writer and avid home cook born and raised in Edmonton but currently living in New York City. She believes everyone deserves to eat good food every day and that cooking is the key. Most recently she wrote the award-winning, bestselling, Good and Cheap, a cookbook of appealing, beautiful food for very low incomes. She has been delighted by cooking and baking ever since she realized that they were the closest things we have to magic.

Links to buy Edmonton Cooks book:
Figure 1 Publishing
Amazon.ca / Chapters/Indigo.ca / and all major bookstores

Edmonton Cooks‘s promo links:
Figure 1 Publishing
Leanne’s promo links:
Website
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram

What are you working on now?
Leanne: My next book! It’s still a secret though.

Leanne’s reading recommendation:
Leanne: I just got back from vacation and read a bunch of random fantasy books, but before that I was loving Lindy West and her first wonderful book, Shrill.

Other titles in this series from Figure 1 Publishing:
Calgary Cooks
Toronto Cooks
Montreal Cooks
Ottawa Cooks
Winnipeg Cooks

Felicity Harley – update on a new novel

Felicity Harley is a fellow Bequian author who has been featured previously on Reading Recommendations here and on my main blog, here and here. I had the great privilege to offer to beta-read and polish-edit this manuscript for Felicity, and am very pleased now to announce the publication of her new novel on a very important subject that should be of interest – and concern – to everyone!

The Burning Years
Until This Last Quartet: Book 1
by Felicity Harley
Published by Double Dragon Publishing
Genre: Literary Science Fiction

In the year, 2060, Sophie, a top female scientist, dismantles the government weather modification program and steals the male and female trans-humans who hold the promise of extended life.

While the remaining inhabitants of Earth are forced to design new underground habitats in order to survive a harsh, overheated world, Captain Rachel Chen, takes the worldship Persephone to Proxima Centauri, hoping this new star system will provide a refuge for the survivors of the human race.

Advance Reviews
“I LOVED this book. Even more than my just “loving it,” though, I feel very strongly that it critically bridges and transcends audiences and the timing is beyond perfect. I believe what you’ve written is incredibly important.

“Your science, both current and future, is sound and far-reaching. You tap into so many levels of what’s going on, and what can possibly go on (travel beyond our planet). I really like the “voice” throughout the book, regardless of which scenario you’ve dropped the reader into. All are equally engaging and the character development is even and (almost) clinically objective. I think this will really (also) appeal to a sci-fi audience, which is awesome and very “in line” with today’s readers.

“Additionally, I have to admit that I was haunted by your descriptions of the plutocracy and their reckless disregard for the vast majority of living things on Earth. What OTHER possible explanation can there even BE than yours (that they consider everyone but themselves to be “takers”)? Your descriptions of the political elite align perfectly with real-time scenes playing out across America right now.

“The mix and “balance” of gloom and despair vs. incredible scientific achievements removed what might have become an almost claustrophobic effect. Example: The US population goes from 318 million to 10 million VS Rachel’s living, breathing personal space on Persephone which made me think of the vividness and aching beauty of the forests in the movie, “Avatar.” Very hard to achieve this effect.

“[Side bar: VERY nice weaving of string theory, parallel universes, quantum entanglement, Maslow, and the heliosphere’s foam zone in the book! Also, excellent timing with “Stranger Things” making the US Department of Energy out to potentially be devastating in the future– and you’ve got DARPA. Perfect!]

“After I finished the book, I again visited your website for The Burning Years. As I scrolled down to the pictures at the bottom, seeing them for the first time, it was SO NEAT. I advise anyone who reads the book to do the same thing.

“Here’s a fiction that’s not afraid to tackle some of the biggest topics of our time.”

Bill McKibben, author, The End of Nature and numerous environmental books, and founder of 350.org

“… the journey through a different way of inhabiting our solar system based on the latest technologies, developments, and beliefs about who we are and our relationship to living, life, and space … It’s wonderful―”

Rachel Armstrong, TED Senior Fellow, Professor and Pioneer of “Living Architecture”

To read an excerpt of the novel, please click here and scroll down.

The Burning Years Website
And for more information about Climate Change, please read this article, We Asked Sci-Fi Writers About The Future Of Climate Change

Where to purchase Felicity’s book:
Double Dragon Publishing

Amy M. Reade – a new novel update

Amy M. Reade has previously been featured on Reading Recommendations in April 2015 and April 2016. She returns now to tell us about a new mystery novel.

The House on Candlewick Lane
by Amy M. Reade
Published by Lyrical Underground
Genre: Fiction, Mystery/Suspense

It is every parent’s worst nightmare. Greer Dobbins’ daughter has been kidnapped—and spirited across the Atlantic to a hiding place in Scotland. Greer will do anything to find her, but the streets of Edinburgh hide a thousand secrets—including some she’d rather not face.

Art historian Dr. Greer Dobbins thought her ex-husband, Neill, had his gambling addiction under control. But in fact he was spiraling deeper and deeper into debt. When a group of shady lenders threatens to harm the divorced couple’s five-year-old daughter if he doesn’t pay up, a desperate Neill abducts the girl and flees to his native Scotland. Though the trail seems cold, Greer refuses to give up and embarks on a frantic search through the medieval alleys of Edinburgh—a city as beguiling as it is dangerous. But as the nightmare thickens with cryptic messages and a mysterious attack, Greer herself will become a target, along with everyone she holds dear.

Where to purchase Amy’s book:
Amy’s website

Robert Eggleton

Robert Eggleton

What is your latest release and what genre is it? Rarity from the Hollow is an adult literary novel, science fiction.

Quick description: Lacy Dawn’s father relives the Gulf War, her mother’s teeth are rotting out, and her best friend is murdered by the meanest daddy on Earth. Life in the hollow is hard. She has one advantage — an android was inserted into her life and is working with her to cure her parents. But, he wants something in exchange. It’s up to her to save the Universe. Lacy Dawn doesn’t mind saving the universe, but her family and friends come first.

Rarity from the Hollow is adult literary science fiction filled with tragedy, comedy and satire. A Children’s Story. For Adults.

Brief biography:
Robert Eggleton has served as a children’s advocate in an impoverished state for over forty years. He is best known for his investigative reports about children’s programs, most of which were published by the West Virginia Supreme Court where he worked from 1982 through 1997, and which also included publication of models of serving disadvantaged and homeless children in the community instead of in large institutions, research into foster care drift involving children bouncing from one home to the next — never finding a permanent loving family, and statistical reports on the occurrence and correlates of child abuse and delinquency.

Today, he is a recently retired children’s psychotherapist from the mental health center in Charleston, West Virginia, where he specialized in helping victims cope with and overcome physical and sexual abuse, and other mental health concerns. Rarity from the Hollow is his debut novel. Its release followed publication of three short Lacy Dawn Adventures in magazines: Wingspan Quarterly, Beyond Centauri, and Atomjack Science Fiction. The second edition of Rarity from the Hollow was released on November 3, 2016. Author proceeds have been donated to a child abuse prevention program operated by Children’s Home Society of West Virginia. Robert continues to write fiction with new adventures based on a protagonist that is a composite character of children he met when delivering group therapy services. The overall theme of his stories remains victimization to empowerment.

Links to buy Robert’s book:
Lulu
Amazon
Dog Horn Publishing

Robert’s promo links:
Website
Goodreads
Facebook
Twitter
Google+
LinkedIn

What are you working on now?
The next full-length Lacy Dawn Adventure is Ivy, also within the speculative fiction genre. How far will a child go to save a parent from addiction? Stopping an alien invasion was merely a rest area on the side road of this almost forgotten town.

Robert’s reading recommendation:
For anybody experiencing serious medical concerns, or as a gift to a loved one who is, I recommend The Warrior Patient by Temple Williams. It’s an amazing book about the importance of assertiveness in our health care delivery system.

Joel Eisenberg – update on a new volume in Apocalyptic Novel series

Joel Eisenberg was previously featured on Reading Recommendations in May 2015 when he told us about the first book in his epic Fantasy series, The Chronicles of Ara (created with Stephen Hillard). He’s back now to tell us of a new development in writing the storyline of the third novel, the publication of which has just been announced.

The Chronicles of Ara: Inferno
Volume III
by Joel Eisenberg and Stephen Hillard
Published by Incorgnito Publishing Press
Genre: Epic Fantasy

From ABC7:
“Candidate” Donald Trump to be Featured in Apocalyptic Novel Series, The Chronicles of Ara

PASADENA, Calif., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — “Candidate” Donald Trump is the latest real-life figure portrayed in Joel Eisenberg and Steve Hillard’s acclaimed alt-fantasy series, The Chronicles of Ara. Trump’s arc begins with volume three in the series, subtitled Inferno.

The books follow the journey of Ara, a corrupted muse who has infected man’s artistry to influence the biblical end of days. Trump will be introduced in Inferno as the GOP candidate to whom the country will turn following a catastrophic domestic event.

“The Chronicles of Ara is an eight-part series that strives for relevancy,” says Eisenberg. “Trump as a candidate had made his fair share of promises. But campaign promises and reality are two different things, and in the books both prove equally dangerous.”

In the novels, Ara is corrupted following a tragic loss. Using parallel storylines, the characters include some of history’s more renowned “dark authors” – J.R.R. Tolkien, Mary Shelley, Lewis Carroll, H.G. Wells, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft – as they are inspired to pen their greatest works. In modern day, within these authors’ books are clues of an impending man-made apocalypse, as has been inspired by the power of their creations.

“Real-world commentary on Trump is not always kind,” says Hillard. “As our future ‘President Trump’ claims that The Bible is his ‘favorite book,’ with this inspiration he assigns a propaganda minister of sorts to disseminate prophetic words and images that will lead to his favor with evangelicals, while framing himself as the only possible savior of the masses. But behind this prophet is a puppet-master, an immortal, with a larger agenda. What then?”

For full article, click here.

To purchase books in this series:
Vol. I – Creation
Vol. II – Perdition
Vol. III – Inferno

S.K. Nicholls – update on a new novel

Happy Birthday, S.K. Nicholls!

S.K. Nicholls has been previously promoted on Reading Recommendations. She’s back now to tell us about a book recently published, the first in a new detective series.

Naked Alliances: A Richard Noggin Novel (The Naked Eye Series Volume 1)
by S.K. Nicholls
Publisher: Brave Blue Heron Books
Genre: Crime fiction

When a young immigrant woman and an exotic dancer are forced to flee men with guns and have no place to hide, Richard Noggin, P.I., can’t turn his back—even if helping out makes him a target. Richard plans to impress an aspiring politician by taking on a big white-collar case that could take him from the streets to an air-conditioned office. Instead,he’s handed a cold case and quickly finds himself sucked into a shadowy world of sex, secrets and…murder. Marked for a bullet and stretched thin by his investigations, Richard reluctantly teams up with the unlikely, brassy custodian of the young woman on the run. With bodies piling up, Richard and his companion are forced to go undercover in a most unlikely locale: the Leisure Lagoon, a nudist resort. Going undercover in this instance will mean going uncovered…but lives are at stake—and this Naked Eye will have to juggle to keep his balls in the air and connect the dots before anyone else is murdered. As his pulse-quickening quest for answers leads from the dark corners of Orlando’s Little Saigon to the sunny exposure of the Leisure Lagoon, Richard will be put to the test. Just how much will this Naked Eye have to bear…or bare? The heat is on in this quirky Sunshine State crime thriller.

**From smt: I had the opportunity to beta-read and provide suggestions on this novel almost a couple of years ago now, and thought at the time that this was going to be a great novel once it was published. Since publication, I received a complimentary copy and reread. I’m happy to say that this novel is now better than I expected it could be! Well done, S.K. Nicholls! You are sure to find many new readers and fans for this detective series! Congratulations!

Where to purchase and for more information:
S.K. Nicholls’s blog and website
Amazon
Now also available in an Audible edition!

Tim Baker – Update on a new Flagler Beach novel

Tim Baker is back with another new novel, and his wonderful character Ike is in it!! Tim has been associated with Reading Recommendations since the beginning and I’ve been pleased to announce each new novel as they are released. I’m also pleased to have been a beta-reader of this novel and I can honestly say this is the best Tim Baker novel I have read yet – and I’ve had the great pleasure of reading every one!

Blood in the Water
by Tim Baker
Genre: Suspense/Thriller

Blood in the Water – my ninth novel – tells the story of Bob “Oscar” Oscarson, who finds a 300-year-old Spanish coin while SCUBA diving. Naturally he thinks his find is only the beginning. Unfortunately, he’s right—it’s the beginning of trouble the likes of which he never imagined.

In the book, we also see the return of Flagler Beach P.I. Steve Salem and his partner Val Casey (Backseat to Justice), who are investigating the disappearance of a retired architect from Rhode Island. Somehow their investigation connects them to Oscar and his mystery coin, and before long…there’s blood in the water.

Available in paperback and Kindle.

Also, to celebrate this new publication, Tim is offering a couple of his earlier books FREE!! for a limited time … The True Meaning of Free Choice

Lawrence Schwartzwald

I first learned of Lawrence Schwartzwald’s photography through Canadian poet Frank Beltrano (who has previously been promoted on Reading Recommendations as well as being a great personal pal). Frank had suggested I’d find Lawrence’s photos very interesting. I became Facebook friends with Lawrence, enjoyed viewing all his photography, and was very pleased when he announced the publication of this collection of photographs of people reading. The concept is so in keeping with my own attempts to promote and encourage reading that I invited Lawrence to join RR to tell us about it.

Self-portrait on Madison ave. Exclusive Photos by Lawrence Schwartzwald

Lawrence Schwartzwald

What is your latest release and what genre is it? The Art of Reading, a photo essay

Quick description: A collection of candid images of ordinary folks (mostly New Yorkers) in the act of reading books and printed matter.

front book cover of The Art of Reading by Lawrence Schwartzwald

Brief biography:
Born in the Bronx, I currently live and work in Manhattan. I spent nearly twenty years as a salaried freelancer with The New York Post. In 1971 or 1972, I picked up a copy of Andre Kertesz’s On Reading, which has had a great influence on this series.

**The Exhibition and sale of The Art of Reading, a photo essay, and prints will be at The Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA, from March 9-March 20, 2017. Fine Art Prints on exhibition at Davis Orton Gallery in Hudson, NY, for 2016 Self Published Photobook Exhibition. The Art of Reading, a photo essay, Best In Show.

Links to buy Lawrence’s book:
The Art of Reading, a photo essay, is available via McNally Jackson Books in Soho (to purchase a signed copy), Dashwood Books, The Art Book Store at P.S. 1 MoMA, K&M Camera on Broadway, Strand Books and Grolier Poetry Bookshop in Cambridge, MA.

Lawrence’s promo links:
Website
Facebook
Instagram: lawrenceschwartzwald

From Slate: Photographic Proof That New Yorkers Will Read Books Absolutely Anywhere

Lawrence’s reading recommendation:
The last book I read is Bruce Davidson by Aperture.