Author Interview – Richard Flores IV

What are you most proud of accomplishing so far in your life? Without a doubt fatherhood is my proudest accomplishment.  There is something that changes in you when you become a father.  The world looks different.  You see things in your life differently.  Suddenly the brand new car doesn’t seem so important.  Besides there are few accomplishments in life that can continue to give you a feeling of pride and success like being a father can.  Each time my children accomplish something new in their lives, so do I.  It really is the best thing life has to offer.

What is your favorite color? Green.  No reason for it.  It just has always been that way.

What is your favorite food? I love Pizza.  But don’t put pineapple and ham on it.  That isn’t right.  Stick with red sauce and the usual toppings.

What’s your favorite place in the entire world? I’m not a very well-traveled person, so that is very hard for me to pick.  I know some places in the world I am dying to see.  England, Italy, Niagara Falls, and Australia are on the top of my list.  Of places I’ve visited to date, I really enjoy the beauty of Monterey, California and Seattle, Washington.

How has your upbringing influenced your writing? I wish I had some tragic back-story to tell you.  Something about how some life changing moment influenced my writing. Not in the sense that I want a tragedy, but in the sense that my answers to these types of questions are boring.

I was raised in a very open minded family.  There wasn’t much that was “off limits” to discuss.  My Mom and Dad are readers.  So I feel like I have a very open minded view of the world.  I think that allows me to see many possible futures that might come to be, even if I don’t like them.

Do you recall how your interest in writing originated? I’ve always had a very active imagination.  Worlds, people, ideas, and concepts come to my mind very often.  But writing as a hobby probably stated in my early years in high school, though I recall writing a little in junior high.  But, in high school I remember writing a short story and reading it to my English class.  It was a science fiction piece, and that really sparked my interest in the idea of writing.  It was well received in class so that peaked my interest even more.  It wasn’t until four years after high school that I wrote anything with the idea to have it published.

When and why did you begin writing? I really began writing with serious intentions in 2003.  That was when I wrote the original manuscript for Dissolution of Peace, though it had no title at the time.  But it wasn’t until late 2010 that I really began to take getting published seriously.   Why the sudden motivation?  I’m not a hundred percent sure.  But ever since writing in 2003, the idea of doing it called to me.  I finally decided that I needed to do it.  It was time I finally realized a dream after having several others not work out.

How long have you been writing? Altogether, I’ve been writing for sixteen years.  But really writing passionately it has only been two years.

When did you first know you could be a writer? The day my first acceptance letter came from Liquid Imagination for the second short story I had ever written and the first flash fiction.  That story, “Death Watch” came in my first year trying to be a “real” writer.  It was a big boost and it made me feel like I could do this.  Later, the fan reception to that story, including a second place finish in the Preditors and Editors readers’ poll, really ignited the flame.

When Earth Navy Captain Christina Serenity is brutally attacked by a traitor, her life is saved by Security Forces Corporal Michael Carlson. On the heels of her recovery, her ship is attacked by terrorists, and she is thrown into a difficult assignment. She must chase after the only clue they have, a Martian ship called the Phobos, and find out what secrets it hides. To make matters worse, someone still wants her dead.

Her ship, E.S.S. Australia embarks on a mission that leads Serenity on journey of discovery, friendship, betrayal, and revenge. She quickly learns the only thing harder to prevent than war, is love.

Now Serenity must trust her protection crew to keep her alive long enough to solve this puzzle while trying to prevent an interplanetary war.

The line has been drawn. Who will cross first?

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Genre – Science Fiction

Rating – PG13 to R (Language)

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Orangeberry Book of the Day - Blood, Smoke and Ashes by Bradley Convissar

Part 1

What Happens In Vegas

Chapter 1

Glenn Baxter made his way through the massive indoor storage complex, following the echoes in the distance with the same precision of a bloodhound using his nose to track his quarry.  His ears, large like Dumbo's (according to his ex-wife, who rarely had a nice thing to say about him), picked up the sounds of laughter, arguing, banging, and shoes scuffing along concrete floor in the distance, and he dutifully followed.  It was almost four-thirty and he was already twenty minutes late—ownership had probably snipped the locks off the first two or three abandoned storage lockers and auctioned them off already—and he didn’t want to miss any more of the action than he had already missed.  Thankfully, he had registered for the auction earlier in the day.  If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been allowed to participate at all, and that would have been unfortunate.  He always did well in Vegas.  And he had a good feeling about this place today.  Glenn had no paranormal or supernatural powers that he knew about, but when he had a gut feeling about a particular auction or a particular unit, he never ignored it.  And when he marked this day and this storage facility (Bob Jensen’s SafeStorage, a massive storage facility ten miles outside of the Vegas strip he visited at least once a year) a month ago, his gut told him that there was treasure to be found in the desert that day.

Glenn was not a professional storage picker, like many of the regulars he saw at these auctions.  He didn’t do it to earn a living.  He was a licensed handyman and ran a home improvement business from his house in Los Angeles.  The job provided a stable income but little excitement.  No, this was definitely a hobby, one he indulged in a half dozen times a year.  Most of the time he visited facilities in Southern California so he wouldn’t have to travel far from his home in Los Angeles, but once or twice a year for the past five years he ventured into Nevada for an auction.  He enjoyed the change of scenery.  And the casinos. And the legal brothels.

He felt like a treasure hunter when he went to a storage auction, and the allure of the unknown, the feeling of excitement or disappointment after opening an abandoned storage unit, was something that added a measure of spice to his life.  And since he didn't need it as his sole source of income, he didn’t get too down when things didn’t work out.  On one trip last year, he purchased a unit for almost five hundred bucks because the two-dozen boxes inside had been labeled electronics.  He had expected gaming systems and computer parts and movies.  What he found were rotting clothing, several dozen VHS tapes, four VCRs, and a couple of broken Apple computers manufactured during the eighties.

When he did find things of value, though, what he did with them was determined by what the items were: books and clothing he donated, electronics and multimedia, like video games and movies, he sold on eBay or Craigslist, furniture he sold to consignment shops, and anything else he found that he wasn't sure about he brought to a local pawn shop here in Vegas where he had developed a mutual respect with the hard-nosed but honest New York native who ran the place.

Glenn rounded the final corner of his chase and found a scene more raucous than expected, with hands flying into the air at a frantic pace and a chorus of voices vying for dominance as buyers rapidly raised their bids.  He discovered why when he spied the large LCD TV that stood bare for everyone to see in the front of the just-opened locker.  It wasn't just the TV that got the bidding—and the pushing and shoving—going, though.  A large, expensive TV like that, which may or may not actually work, oftentimes meant there were more electronics and other expensive items to be found deeper in the storage unit.  Video game systems, computers, monitors, home theater systems, speakers, nice furniture.  Glenn watched as bidding escalated quickly from $50 to $2,500— a relatively high number in the storage auction game—in under two minutes.  Though he was intrigued, he never considered getting involved in this particular auction; he had a thousand in cash in his pocket and that was it.  Besides... he had a feeling about this unit.  A small voice in the back of his head told him that maybe everything was not as it seemed.

As he waited for the auction to end (the final price wound up being twenty-seven hundred bucks, a price paid by a man who stood no more than five feet high and was wider than he was tall), Glenn surveyed the rest of the field.  There were easily thirty people crammed into the narrow hallway. Each individual looked scruffy and dirty (even the women) to some degree, and each possessed his or her own unique brand of body odor, the bouquets brought to full bloom by the heat inside the building. 

He recognized several of the bidders even though he had only wandered into Vegas for auctions half a dozen times over the past five years.  Brian Maslow, six-and-a-half feet of taught muscle earned wrestling alligators in the Louisiana bayou, stood toward the back.  He was easily recognizable by his massive frame, which dwarfed everyone else, and the score of red welts—his battle wounds, he called them—that covered his ruddy face. 

The Wilchak brothers, the slender, almost rat-like twins who owned a second hand shop in Denver, stood up front of the crowd, sticking their necks as far into the storage locker as the facility owner would allow, their noses constantly twitching with excitement as they peered into shadowy corners. 

And of course, Emilio Martinez was there.  The corpulent Mexican man stood quietly off to the side, a condescending sneer prominent on his ugly face. His tanned features were covered with a fine layer of sweat which glistened in the poor light, giving him a green, almost sickly appearance.   His heavy eyes, behind which lurked a reptile-like intelligence, casually observed his competition as he waited, his gaze lingering a bit too long as it fell on Glenn. 

Glenn himself was forty years old.  He stood six feet tall and was lean and long of limb, an advantage when it came to clambering up ladders and slinking through crawl spaces and attics while he worked.  His brown hair was pulled into a short ponytail at the back of his head, and he possessed a perpetual five o’clock shadow across his cheeks and chin.  He wore a pair of heavily stained jeans that were torn in half a dozen places and a white T-shirt covered by a red and yellow checkered short-sleeved button-down.

He did not recognize anyone else; they were either newbies who hadn't been around when he was last in town six months ago, day trippers who decided they had nothing better to do with an afternoon and five hundred bucks than spin the giant wheel of fate and buy a random locker, or dabblers like him who came on a whim when they needed a little excitement.

Five lockers in this particular aisle were flagged for auction, including the one that had just been purchased, each unit identified by a small green flag numbered four through eight. 

The group of buyers moved on to the locker labeled five as the winning bidder of four, the electronics unit, slapped his own lock onto the door.  Glenn had missed four auctions, including the one that had just ended, but that was okay.  There were eight or nine left to bid on.

The manager pulled out his bolt clippers and snapped off the Master Lock which secured the gaudy orange steel door to the side mooring.  He rolled the door up, revealing boxes, boxes and more boxes.  Dozens of brown boxes of all sizes filled the five-by-ten room, none of them labeled, none of them open.  Flashlights snapped on and mirrors on short poles entered the unit as the hunters used every tool at their disposal to learn something about the contents of the room.  It was like a strip joint—you could look and drool as much as you wanted, but absolutely no touching.  Touching got you thrown out and often times banned.

Each man and woman was given fifteen seconds or so to explore the room with their eyes, but Glenn did not venture forward.  He got no feeling from the room.  Didn’t mean there was nothing valuable inside, just nothing for him.  This type of room, it was the toughest to judge.  The boxes could contain old moldy clothing.  Could contain baseball cards or comic books.  Could contain personal knickknacks.  Could contain crap.  Rooms like this, they never went for more than a hundred bucks or so. While the rewards could be great, the risks were even greater.  And if there was nothing valuable inside, you still owned the locker and were responsible for cleaning it out.  And that meant time.

Once everyone had gotten a good look at the non-descript boxes, the auctioneer, an independent agent named Carl Smithson hired by the storage company to run the auction, began doing his thing: “We’re going to start at ten dollars.  Do I have ten dollars?”  A hand went up in the back.  “Ten dollars.  I've got ten dollars.  Fifteen dollars.  Anyone got fifteen dollars?”  A “yup” from someone right next to Carl.  And that was how it went, the dirty, sweaty men and women raising their hands or emitting a rough harrumph until the cost got to seventy dollars, at which point no more hands went up and everyone fell silent.  The rat brothers won the box room.  One of them slapped a lock on it, and to the next locker the group went.

One by one, they visited the remaining three lockers, and the same set of events occurred each time.  The door was rolled up, the contents were examined, and the bidding commenced. 

Locker six contained a moldy king-sized mattress up front that blocked the rest of the contents (went for $20 to a man wearing a cowboy hat, a large broom moustache and a pair of faded denim jeans).  Locker seven contained some furniture and several boxes labeled clothing (this one went for $120 to the mountainous Brian Maslow). And locker eight contained a student desk, several computers from the nineties with their accompanying massive monitors, and several boxes labeled notebooks, spare parts, and clothing (that one went for $250 to one of the irregulars).

As the buyer of the final unit in this group locked up his prize, the owner of the facility, Bob Jensen (who always attended the auctions to make sure everything was on the up and up) took a call on his cell phone.  He did more listening than speaking, and after several moments, he hung up abruptly.  He announced to the crowd that only three lockers remained, not four, because some lucky bastard had just gotten a stay of execution in the form of a loan from a family member to pay both the back rent and current rent on his unit.

The small group let out a collective sigh of disappointment, then traipsed down several more aisles, Bob pulling down a small flag marked #9 along the way.  Glenn hoped this wasn’t the locker he had that feeling about.  That would have been disappointing.

They finally came to a widened area at the far end of the facility where the buyers could spread out and breathe a bit.  There were fifteen ten-foot-by-ten-foot units in the little cul-de-sac, three of them marked with the familiar flags.  Glenn walked quickly to #10 before the owner could snip the lock and looked at the door.  He felt nothing.  He moved three doors down to #11 and looked at it.  Once again, nothing.  He shrugged, made his way across the wide hallway to #12. He looked at the orange aluminum door, its rough face crisscrossed with dozens if not hundreds of scratches, and knew.  Knew that this was the one.  He looked back to the group, where the men and women were busily examining the contents of #10.  All except for Emilio, who was looking at Glenn.  The fat man offered a toothless smile which looked borderline grotesque on his frog-like face.  Glenn turned from him and walked to #11.

When this unit was finally opened, Glenn made a show of looking interested.  He tried to shine his flashlight in all the corners, tried to maneuver his little mirror-on-a-stick he had brought with him in every cranny.  It was an intriguing locker to be sure.  Two boxes labeled electronics.  Two boxes labeled books. Three boxes labeled clothing.  Some furniture.  Some artwork stacked against the back wall.  He thought he spied some baseball bats and hockey sticks leaning against a corner.  Signed stuff, possibly.  But even if they weren’t collectibles, used-but-not-too-worn sporting equipment almost always brought in a pretty penny on eBay and Craig’s List and in thrift shops.  Stuff like that could be expensive new, and struggling middle-class parents were always looking for deals for gear for their kids.  Taken as a whole, it looked like the personal contents of a studio apartment of a twenty or thirty year old.  There was sure to be some value there.

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Genre – Thriller / Horror

Rating – PG13 bordering on R

(Horror with some violence / Some sex, not overly graphic)

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Blog http://bradleyconvissar.blogspot.com/

The Orange Moon Affair by AFN Clarke

 

The Orange Moon Affair - by the bestselling author of CONTACT - is the first book of a compelling new thriller series, an action-packed conspiracy with a hero and heroine you hold your breath for. If you enjoy the action of Robert Ludlum, the intensity of Brad Thor and the international intrigue of Daniel Silva, then this book’s for you!

Ex-British Special Forces soldier Thomas Gunn is drawn back into his old life of international intrigue and danger following the murder of his billionaire father. The deeper he digs the more complicated the puzzle becomes until he finds himself working for MI5 uncovering a global conspiracy that puts the freedom of the western world at grave risk. His girlfriend Julie becomes his accomplice surprising him with her loyalty, strength of character and physical prowess.

While traversing the globe being shot at, shot down and losing loved ones – a haunting question tears at his soul – was his father really at the heart of this evil conspiracy? Or was he a pawn in a larger more insidious game that even he could not control?

Seeking the final answer could cost Thomas dearly, ripping from him all that he most loves and cherishes and leaving him questioning his past, his future and what kind of person he is or wants to become. The final outcome depends on him. Or does it?

As a former Captain of Britain’s elite Parachute Regiment and son of an MI6 operative the author brings his own unique and eye-opening experiences to the character and exploits of Thomas Gunn, as well as an unsettling blurring of the lines between fiction and reality when exploring the ruthless abuse of power and position for personal gain.

“… The Orange Moon Affair is timely, eye-opening, fast-paced … you will find you want to turn the next page, and the next page, and the next … the first of the Thomas Gunn series … you don’t want to miss them!”  5 Stars, Remy Benoit.

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Genre – Thriller

Rating – PG13

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Website http://www.afnclarke.com/

Sleeper's Run by Henry Mosquera (Excerpt)

CHAPTER ONE

“What’s your name?” the police officer asks me.


“Eric Caine,” I answer rubbing my temple while lying on a hospital bed.


“Do you know where you are?” the cop says. Like me, he looks to be in his thirties, and has
the same body type. The officer has short brown hair, gentle blue eyes, and a youthful face that tells me he hasn’t been in this job very long.

Doctor Goldman, the man I saw when I woke up this morning, stands behind the officer. He’s a prematurely balding guy with glasses and a pleasant demeanor; probably just out of med school.

“The Miami VA,” I say scratching my scruffy black beard. “Listen, I already went through this wit h Doct or Goldman this morning. Whats t his all about?”

“I’m Officer Tucker with the Miami-Dade Police Department. I need to ask you a couple of questions.”

“Maybe you should’ve talked to the doctor first, Officer. He would’ve saved you some time by telling you I can’t remember much.”

“Mr. Caine, your employer has filed a missing person report on you. That was eight days ago. Since then, no one has had any idea of your whereabouts. That’s why it’s important to establish what happened.”

“Eight days?” I mutter as the idea dawns on me.“How did I get here?”

“You were found wandering the streets of South Beach by a gentleman,” Doctor Goldman says. “At first, he thought you were just a homeless man, but the fact that you were speaking Arabic caught his attention, so he decided to help. He saw the military ID card in your wallet when you passed out,and decided to bring you here.”

I study the doctor and the policeman with the same quizzical look they cast on me. Why the hell was I speaking Arabic?

“Mr.Caine,what’s the last thing you remember?” Officer Tucker says.

I lie back looking out t he window, and rub my face t o force my memory t o spit up somet hing, anything. “I was at a bar downtown called Tobacco Road. I remember walking to my car. It was late... that’s all I can remember. The rest are just fragments of me walking down the street, and then I woke up here.”

“Were you alone?” Tucker begins taking notes. “Huh?”


“At the bar.”


“Yes, I went by myself.”

“Did you drink that night?” Tucker’s eyes search for an answer even before I can speak. “I had a few drinks,” I say,looking down a little uncomfortably.


“I noticed on your record you got two DUIs about a month apart from each other,” the officer says giving me a hard stare. He’s clearly not buying it .


“It’s been a rough year,” I say holding the officer’s stare.


“It must be,” Tucker says returning to his notes. “You were also detained for getting into a
fight with some guys at another bar a couple of weeks ago.” His eyes shoot back at me. “Luckily for you, nobody pressed any charges.” He continues reading, “The police were also called t o your home t wo mont hs ago, about shot s being fired in your apart ment . An accident al discharge of a firearm involving a television set.”

“Like I said, it’s been a rough year.”

“Have you ever been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder?” Doctor Goldman asks.

“Listen, I’m not some deranged vet,” I say. “If you want to charge me with something, go ahead. So either get to the point or go away.”

I can see both men are taken aback by my outburst. I take a deep breath and lay back, rubbing my eyes and trying to compose myself. I’m still confused as all hell and now my head hurt s.

“Do you remember anything about the accident?” Tucker asks right on cue.

“Accident?” I say freezing. Images of my old man killed by a drunk driver bombard my mind, accompanied by a growing sense of dread.

“You were involved in a car accident near the I-95 not too far from the bar,” Officer Tucker says scrutinizing my face for any signs of deception.

“Was anybody hurt?” Isay before the cop can continue.


“No.”


I feel as if my blood starts to flow again.


“You crashed your car into a tree,” Tucker says. “The vehicle was declared a ‘total loss.’

There were no witnesses.”


I suddenly feel as if t he ground has been pulled from under my feet . Officer Tucker repeats the question, but my mind is miles away. An accident? I can’t recall anything about a crash. Did I finally snap and try to take it up with God? That’d make sense if I actually believed in him.

He seems sufficiently satisfied by my confused look to proceed with the questioning. “There was reportedly a fight at the bar that same night; you wouldn’t happen to know anything about that,would you?”

“No,” I say in a daze.


“Do you have any family?”


I shake my head.


“Friends?”


“I just moved here three months ago.” My answers roll off my tongue automatically.
“From where?”


“Fayetteville, NorthCarolina. I was stationed at Pope Air Force Base.”


“How long have you been working as a paramedic?”


“Pretty much since Igot here,” I say.


“But you live in a luxury condo.” Tucker’s street smarts take over his bedside manner.


“It was my mother’s. Does this have anything to do with your investigation?”


“No,” the officer says closing his notepad. “Don’t worry; this is more of an insurance concern than a police matter. You seem in good health. You didn’t injure anyone or damage any property for that matter. So, aside from a couple of fees regarding the towing and storage of your car, you have nothing to worry about.”

“Other than my memory,” I say.

“Mr. Caine, you seem to have suffered a severe contusion that affected your short-term memory,” Goldman says.“This combined with the shock of the accident must have left you in a confused state. This is, of course, a peculiar situation, to say the least; but not impossible. Fortunately, all your tests came back fine. As far as we can tell, you’re in excellent health.”

“Yet I feel like the floor of a taxi,” I say rubbing my sore body.

“Nothing that a nice bath and a good night’s sleep won’t fix,” the doctor says.

Officer Tucker stands up and hands me his card. “If you remember anything, give me a call.”

I take it and wait for him to leave. He stops, remembering something. “One more thing...” “Yes?”

“Where did you learn to speak Arabic?” “The Air Force,” I say, lying.

“Of course. You have a good day, Mr. Caine.” 

• Winner of the 2012 IndieReader Discovery Awards for best mystery/thriller
• Winner of the 2011 Reader Views Reviewers Choice Awards for Best South American Novel
• 2012 ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Award finalist
• Honorable mention at the Paris Book Festival
• Honorable mention at the San Francisco Book Festival

War on Terror veteran, Eric Caine, is found wandering the streets of Miami with no memory of the car accident that left him there. Alone and suffering from PTSD, Eric is on a one-way road to self-destruction. Then a chance meeting at a bar begins a series of events that helps Eric start anew. When his new job relocates him to Venezuela-the land of his childhood-things, however, take an ominous turn as a catastrophic event threatens the stability of the country. Now Eric must escape an elite team of CIA assassins as he tries to uncover an international conspiracy in which nothing is what it seems.

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Genre - Political Thriller

Rating – R

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Connect with Henry Mosquera on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://redroom.com/member/henry-mosquera

Orangeberry Book of the Day - Tongues of Angels by Julia Park Tracey

Ordinary Time 

CHAPTER 1

Rob searched the crowd in the Italian restaurant for a friend. His sun-darkened skin was bronze against his white collar. He felt the heat through his many layers, the weight of black clericals on an August day, the rub of his collar on his brown neck, and wished himself again on the soft shore of Kauai, with cool-warm water lapping his toes, an iced drink at hand. But vacation was over, summer almost gone, and the pace of church life about to pick up dramatically. Rob cupped a hand to his eyes to see across the outside courtyard, where tables were set under an awning, and patrons lounged with wine glasses at the outdoor bar.

There, Rob spied the sun-bleached hair, heard the distinct laugh, recognized at once the erect posture of his best friend, Father Lawrence Poole, bantering with the bartender. They hadn’t seen each other all summer; Lawrence had been in Italy for a month, then Rob had gone to Hawaii to visit relatives. Rob had missed Lawrence more than he’d expected, felt the loss of the regular afternoon call which filled that empty portion of the day; he had missed Lawrence’s wicked laughter through the phone line, the gossip and the companionship that only two souls with the same vocation could know.

Lawrence greeted Rob with a hug. “Hey, there, sweetie. You look relaxed. Did you get lucky over the summer?”

“Ha, ha.” Rob hugged Lawrence back. “You’re projecting. Is there something you need to confess?”

Lawrence put his hand over his heart and made a tragic face. “My lips are sealed.” Lawrence kissed his fingertips, eyes closed reverently.

“I’ll bet.”

The maitre d’ arrived to escort them to a table.

As Rob and Lawrence passed through the restaurant, a lingering trace of perfume met them, to Rob, as familiar as the scent of his own pillow, his own warmed bed, sweet and musky as a woman. And there was a woman somewhere in the room, nameless, anointed with a certain scent, one that pulled him like a ribbon of memory. Another woman had worn the same perfume for him, long ago, a fragrance forever associated with her, that time, that place, that choice, leading down to this moment, this life. Rob pushed the thought back as they came to their table, and he took his seat. A waitress stood by to take their order.

“Have a drink with me,” Lawrence said, dropping into his chair. “I want to celebrate.”

“Let’s get a bottle, then,” said Rob, taking up the wine list. He pointed to a Sonoma Chardonnay. “This one’s fine,” he told their waitress. As he spoke to her, he noticed a fading red mark—knife slice, cat scratch?—on the back of her hand.

The young waitress in her black trousers and crisp white shirt noted the wine and nodded. Rob handed her the list, watching the curve of her jaw as she walked away, the one brown strand of hair at the nape of her white neck that her hair clasp had missed. He made himself look around the restaurant, noticing instead the marble counters, the open windows where the breeze came in, and the terra cotta tile of the floor.

“Tell me what we’re celebrating,” Rob said.

“Ah. Yes. Something wonderful.” Lawrence smiled, his face still glowing with a Southern California tan, sun-bleached bangs that he tossed from his forehead like an impatient colt. “I met a man last month when I was home in La Jolla for a few days.”

“Oh, don’t tell me—you’re in love.” Rob covered his ears.

“Oh, no, nothing like that.”

“Thank God.”

The waitress returned with the bottle of wine. Rob watched her strong hands as she presented the chill green bottle, deftly opened it, poured, and left them again. When Rob had attended St. Joseph’s Seminary, the nuns who had cared for them—washed the seminarians’ clothes, cooked and served the meals—had belonged to a cloistered order. They never showed their faces, but worked silently in the refectory behind a screen, raised just enough to push out plates of food, with only their hands visible. He recalled their unadorned hands, some freckled with liver spots and others blue-veined with age. One particular pair of hands was youthful, smooth and slender, the color of coffee ice cream, with short squared nails. Rob’s first years at seminary had been a torment, dreaming of those hands.

Rob had never stopped yearning. He knew desire that could sweep through him: the untwisting of a tourniquet, the full heat of blood that floods into a pallid limb, the deliberate twist again to stop the flow. He coped with Zen-like mantras, a Hindu’s control of the physical self, a Jewish sense of guilt. Rob tasted the wheat-colored wine, letting its crisp-tart flavor lie on his tongue before he swallowed its coolness. “So what about this guy?”

Lawrence swirled the wine in his glass and held it to the light to admire its pale color. His long tapered fingers, as if shaped in the womb just to play piano, curved gracefully around the stem of the glass. “It turns out this guy works for Archangel Records. I told him about my plan to compose a Mass, and he was interested.” Lawrence had often talked of composing the Propers for an entire Mass.

“Well, so, he’s interested, so what? That means nothing. I gave him my number and flew back up here, thinking, shot in the dark, chance in a million he’ll call me. My typical luck.” Lawrence sipped his wine. “But this week he actually called. He connected me with this agent in L.A. who handles church music, and they gave me a deadline. I have till June 1 to compose the music, score it, arrange it, make a demo, and get the package to them. And if I make the deadline, and if they like it, we’ll record it. I’ll have a compact disc out for liturgical use—and royalties, I hasten to add. Not bad, eh?” He raised an eyebrow.

“You lead a charmed life, don’t you?” Rob clinked his glass to Lawrence’s. “What’ll you do with the money?”

“Give it to Mother Church, of course. Use it to fund some music minis-tries—like maybe a new cathedral choir.”

“They do need help.”

Lawrence sighed. “But there’s a problem.”

“What?”

“There are only two priests at Resurrection and we’re both booked solid with meetings every night and weddings every Saturday. I have no free time to compose now. The timing is awful! Autumn is the worst, you know, with all these activities, and next thing you know, boom, it’s Advent, Christmas, then it’s Lent, and where’s the time gone?” Lawrence jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Out the window with my recording contract. If the timing was different, I’d be fine. I can’t pass this up, but I don’t know how I’m gonna make it, either.”

“Why don’t I take some of your weddings? Let me know the dates,” Rob offered, as their entrees arrived. The waitress leaned against him, a brush, a nudge, as she worked; setting plates before them, grinding pepper, offering Parmesan, smooth and efficient. Rob and Lawrence waited until she walked away, and then they bowed their heads for a silent prayer. They began to eat.

“So Italy was good?” Rob asked, blowing on a forkful of steaming pasta.

Lawrence held his hand to his heart again. “The best. It always is. I should move there. I will, someday.” He sighed. “How was Hawaii?”

“Hot.” Rob remembered the warm wind, the heat of white sand at his back. “I just lay around at the beach most of the time.”

“Oh?” Lawrence paused, his fork halfway to his mouth. “And?”

“And I got a nice tan. End of story.”

“I’ll hear your confession later, my son.”

“You’re a real funny guy, you know that?” Rob gave Lawrence a look. “Hysterical. Of course I was good.”

“Nothing less than perfection from St. Robert, virgin martyr.”

“Give me a break.”

Lawrence crossed his fingers as if to ward off a vampire. “Next you’ll tell me the ‘Poor Celibate Rob’ story again.”

“Ah, bite me.” Rob grinned as he twirled another forkful of pasta.

“You just have to get over it, Rob. You made your choice. Offer it up.”

Rob reached to pour the wine, but the waitress stopped at the table and took the bottle, poured more wine into their empty glasses. Rob thanked her, his eyes on her hands, that red scratch, the bottle firm in her clasp.

“No confession, huh?” Lawrence rested his chin on his fist, and grinned at Rob.

“’fraid not.”

They sat back as a busboy cleared their plates. Lawrence’s eyes followed the slender young man as he carried the plates away. Lawrence turned back to find Rob watching him. Rob clucked his tongue at his friend.

The waitress, returning with their coffee, smiled sweetly at Rob. He looked away, knowing that he must seem rude.

When she departed, Lawrence said, “She could have been another chip off your chalice.”

Rob said nothing as he poured the last of the wine.

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Genre – Romantic Suspense

Rating – PG13

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Blog http://modernmuse.blogspot.com/

Author Interview – Nhys Glover

How long have you been writing? All my life ( a very long time)

When did you first know you could be a writer? A published writer? When Barbarian’s Mistress had 16,500 downloads world-wide in five days. Suddenly I realised that I’d found my way to my readers.

What inspires you to write and why? Writing is an obsession with me. It’s an addiction I’ve had since childhood and have only been able to feed when my life allowed it. Now I have a lot of time to write. It’s a way to escape the ‘realities’ of life, but more importantly, it allows me to explore my inner world. I write because it feels good. And I like doing what feels good.

What genre are you most comfortable writing? Romance – particularly adventurous, different romances like time travel, paranormal and the less-popular historical (Roman).

What inspired you to write your first book? I wasn’t inspired to write and publish Labyrinth of Light, I was driven to write and publish it. I was symbolically processing the trauma of the worst year of my life – cancer and the death of my son – and I did it using a tool that had always been my favourite: storytelling.

Who or what influenced your writing once you began? Traci Harding is an Aussie fantasy writer that I discovered at the time I started seriously considering publishing my work. She talked about being the channel for non-physical ‘people’ who wanted to get their story out there and her stuff resonated deeply with me. I realised that I could do something similar.

Who or what influenced your writing over the years? My own life experiences and the people I worked with in a variety of fields, from prison in-mates to gurus. My life has been eventful.

What made you want to be a writer? I didn’t want to be a writer, I just always was one. Finding readers who ‘got’ me made me want to write professionally. It’s addictive to have people read and enjoy what you can create.

Three loves are discovered as the clock counts down to 11.40 pm April 14, 1912. Karl Ontario is a medical researcher not an adventurer but when an audacious mission is proposed to go back in time to save doomed children on the ill-fated Atlantic liner, RMS Titanic, he makes sure he’s included on the team. Little does he realise that his own future happiness depends on saving the life of just one passenger: Lizzie Faulkner, an unwed mother-to-be.

Eilish Cork is a time travelling Retriever and this mission is like any other to her until she falls in love with her handsome Target, London barrister Maxwell Ingham, and is asked to risk everything to save him from his fate on the maiden voyage of that tragic ship.
And sweet Pia Rogaland, whose only goal is to rescue the children on board the Titanic until she meets Marco Lorenza, a man she’s not permitted to save.

With time running out, is it possible to rescue those victims history determined went down with the unsinkable Ship of Dreams or will more lives be forfeited trying to carry out this dangerous mission?

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Genre – Romance

Rating – Between PG13 and R (sensual but not erotic)

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Website http://nhysglover.com/

Orangeberry Blast Off – Night Chill by Jeff Gunhus

Jack Tremont moves his family to the quiet mountains of Western Maryland hoping to leave behind a troubled past and restart his life. Instead, he finds himself caught up in a nightmare when his daughter Sarah is targeted by Nate Huckley, a mysterious and horrifying stranger driven by a dark power that will stop at nothing to possess Sarah.

When Sarah goes missing, suspicion falls on Jack and he must uncover the secrets of the small mountain town of Prescott City and face the evil secret hidden there. As he digs further, he learns the conspiracy reaches more deeply than he could have imagined. Finally, he will have to face the question, What is a father willing to do to save his child? The answer? Anything. Anything at all.

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Genre – Supernatural Thriller

Rating – PG13

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Website http://www.jeffgunhus.com/

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