Book reviews, author interviews, thoughtful commentary with Lisa Lickel and friends
Sunday, July 18, 2021
The 10 Win Commandments by Derrick Gray
Monday, March 1, 2021
Shut em Down: Black Women, Racism and Corp America
Genre: Nonfiction/Anthology
ISBN-13: 978-0985031640
As a divorced mother of one daughter she has a vibrant personality that aids in her ability to connect with people on all levels. Dr. Tara has overcome life changing experiences throughout her personal and professional career. She has found a way to connect with women by encouraging them to move past their failures, by defining their own character in order to turn uncertainty to passion. An avid walker, lover of all thing’s basketball, football, and tennis. She is a self-proclaimed popcorn connoisseur. Of her many accomplishments, Dr. Tara is most proud to be a mother.
Friday, February 5, 2021
Write Now Literary tour and giveaway Black White RED all Over
The book tour will run February 1-12, 2021.
Genre: Christian Mystery/Suspense
ISBN-13: 978-1735575209
Deeann D. Mathews is an author, musician, and fractal artist, from San Francisco, CA. She is the author of Black, White, and RED All Over, the first in a series of clean Christian mysteries, and also the author of Seasons Siblings' Timeshare Tiff, a fictional take on the famous fall weather of her hometown. She is also the creative director of Praising Pilgrims Music, a small publishing company of music and music-related materials based in San Francisco, California. Ms. Mathews is also actively creating fractal art and other creative works across a variety of disciplines on Peakd.com.
Ironwood Hamilton, new captain of police in Tinyville VA, is put at odds with his regional police colleagues when a new and confrontational Black newspaper hits them all with a demand for public release of records about police brutality in Lofton County. With the help of one loyal lieutenant and a relative with a famous name and suitably dangerous temperament, Captain Hamilton must gather the clues to a plan for rogue police action that will eventuate in blood and fire
“No more will we allow the wholesale placarding of racist tomes about ourselves and our children to pass for news. No more will we not have a voice to raise in challenge. No more shall we, the Black populations of Tinyville, Littleburg, Miniopolis, Smallwood, Shortport, Big Loft, and the rural countryside be passively painted as savages while the real savages sit comfortably in places of law, commerce, and politics. Be it known to all Virginia: those days are over! Hereby understand that the Lofton County Free Voice will roar back at the voices of racist reactionary news, beginning in Tinyville, then across Lofton County, then to the uttermost parts of Virginia!”
Captain Ironwood Hamilton and Lieutenant Patrick O'Reilly of Tinyville's two-man police force stood at the nearest public bulletin board nearest the police station, reading what they had been reading, over and over again, on their regular dawn walk through the town.
The lieutenant was 25 years old, medium height and build, with bright red hair, ruddy skin, green eyes, and a shocking Southern drawl (unless you know the Scotch-Irish history of the southeastern United States).
The captain was 45 years old, six feet tall, sinewy, with iron-gray eyes and hair to match. His features looked like something that those Southern artists who loved to carve Confederates out of marble would have adored – classic, strong features, handsome, calm, and resolute. The slight pinch in those features from the sudden headache the captain was experiencing would of course have been glossed over.
“Wow,” said Lieutenant O'Reilly. “Have ever you read such bombast in all your life, Captain?”
Captain Ironwood Hamilton shook his head slowly, slowly because of the headache that was increasing every second.
“It's only bombast if the Lofton County Free Voice can't do what it says. I rather think it can, or at least can make a gallant effort.”
Lieutenant O'Reilly's green eyes got wide.
“Captain, you're not serious! A Black newspaper? In Lofton County? They won't last a week!”
Captain Hamilton shook his head again and restrained his urge to rub his throbbing temples.
“It's not 1819, and these are not amateurs we are dealing with. Just from this first issue, I know they have a good chunk of money in hand, dedicated people, and good strategic and tactical sense.”
TWITTER FACEBOOK WEBSITE
AMAZON
Link to giveaway http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/96d196a635/
Monday, January 25, 2021
Write Now Literary Tour with Jess Lederman and Hearts Set Free
Book Title: Hearts Set Free
Genre: Literary Fiction/ Historical/Christian
ISBN-10 : 1098511093
ISBN-13 : 978-1098511098
A
graduate with a degree in music from Columbia University, Jess Lederman is an
author of Christian-themed fiction who lives with his wife and two young sons
in the Pacific Northwest.
He
is currently at work on a novel that begins in the last days of the Wild West
and ends in Las Vegas in 1955. When Jess is not writing or chasing his young
sons around, he can usually be found at the piano playing Chopin nocturnes for
his wife, Ling.
Seven Lives Inexorably Intertwined. Over Eighty-Six Years. That Will Bring a Revelation Beyond What Any of Them Could Imagine.
The Alaska Territory, 1925. When Yura Noongwook’s husband abandons her and her thirteen-year-old son, she vows to win him back and destroy the woman who stole his heart. They embark on an epic cross-country quest that leads them to the Nevada desert, where they meet a man who has turned into the last thing anyone expected him to become …
David Gold. Reno, 1930. A Bible-school dropout known as the Pummelin’ Preacher. His boxing career is fading, just like his faith. But then a former call girl shows up, tells him about the rag-tag congregation she’s part of; how their pastor was murdered. And that the Spirit is moving and David’s destiny is to lead their tiny flock.
Las Vegas, 2011. Cable TV star Tim Faber is an atheist bent on proving God is only alive in people’s imaginations. But Joan Reed, his producer, is trying to recapture the faith of her youth. And both of them are driven to unravel a mystery surrounding the Big Bang theory, never dreaming the answer will forever change their lives.
To do that, they have to meet with the now 99-year-old Luke Noongwook and David Gold’s grandson, Daniel.
The veil is being pulled back, but none of them are prepared for what they’ll find on the other
side.
Read my review here.
Join Jess's Mailing List
Join the authors mailing list to be entered into a drawing
https://www.jesslederman.com/special-offers
Chapter One
Luke and Yura: The Alaska Territory, 1925
My father deserted my mother and me when I was thirteen years
old. He had become famous that winter on the Great Race of Mercy, one
of the Athabascan mushers who brought diphtheria serum to Nome
and saved ten thousand lives. He’d done the impossible, a blind run in
the howling darkness, crossing the open ice of the Norton Sound, the
temperature falling to sixty below, the sun a distant dream. He was our
hero, our North Star.
And then he was gone.
He left us, of course, for a woman. A blizzard had hit him at
Unalakleet, a storm so powerful that it travelled four thousand miles,
till at last it reached New York and froze the Hudson River. The woman
lived in just that far-away land, on the wild island of Manhattan, and
her name was Kathleen Byrne. The Hearst papers had been giving the
Great Race front-page headlines; Kathleen was a reporter, lean and
hungry, she’d go to the ends of the earth for a good story, and one day
she got her chance.
No one in my hometown of Nenana had seen anything like her,
a slender redhead with emerald eyes, smoking Lucky Strikes and
exhaling expertly through her nostrils, this coolly confident young
woman with fiery hair.
She wanted details that would bring the story to life, so Father
brought her to our home to show off his sled dogs. At least, the ones
who’d survived, for three he had raised since they were pups had died
on the trail. Somewhere in the madness of that journey he’d forgotten
to cover their groins with rabbit skins, and they’d perished of frostbite
in the unfathomable cold.
I gaped at her stupidly.
“Excuse my son,” said my mother. “He has no manners.”
Friday, January 15, 2021
Write Now tour with Bre's Heavenly Adventures prize drawing
"As the tears began streaming down her face. Her mama stopped to ask, "will you be ok?" Why doesn't he love me? Bre asked. He always does this! Do you think he's mad?"