Orangeberry Book of the Day – I’d Kill For You by Alan Plessinger

Chapter 2: A Detective, pursuing a lead not likely to produce significant results, comes upon a young girl needing to solve a certain mystery of her own, and upon interrogation finds her life to be not quite an open book, if not yet a fully closed one.

After reading and memorizing the case file that’d been faxed to the office, Riley grabbed the key to his residence for the night, the apartment of a lovely blonde secretary named Karen. He also grabbed his overnight bag with a few essentials. He left the office and took a cab out to her place in Tribeca, let himself in, and crept silently to her bedroom. A light was on. He eased open the door, and found that she had fallen asleep with the lamp on and a book in her hand, waiting for him. He took off his clothes as silently as possible, but not silently enough.

She woke up and asked what took him so long, but it was plain to see she had no real interest in the answer. He smiled, crawled across the bed, and kissed her.

When they were finished making love, Riley got up and took a shower, taking a moment to flush the condom down the toilet. After the shower he dried off and took a moment to use his beard-trimmer and then brush his teeth with his toothbrush from the overnight bag, things he liked to take care of at night. When he finished, he returned to the bedroom and sat naked on the bed, finally ready to get some sleep. Karen was lying there, looking at him, smiling, her arms and legs relaxed, her body contented. Before he could lie down, she crawled across the bed and hugged him.

“I’ve got some bad news, Riley,” she said, kissing him on the shoulder. “I’m taking myself out of the harem.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that, Karen. Why?”

“I’m getting married.”

“Really? That’s great! Congratulations!”

“Thanks. I’m really sorry, honey, but you can’t stay. He’ll be here in a few hours for a breakfast date. You’ve got to be gone.”

Riley was a little taken aback by being thrown out unceremoniously, considering they’d just made love. But he didn’t want to be a nuisance.

“Couldn’t I get some sleep on the couch? I can be your cousin from Schenectady.”

“Honey, I’m marrying the guy who gave jealousy lessons to Othello. You can’t be anybody’s cousin.”

Riley sighed a little and said, “OK, Karen, if that’s the way you want it. I’m sure you two will be very happy together.”

“Thanks, honey. Let’s hope so. I’m not starting things out too well, I know. I should’ve stopped you. I should’ve told you about him, but I had to have one last little taste of the Riley.”

Riley had the unpleasant reaction most men would have, hearing the word little used in any context during pillow talk, but he didn’t complain.

“I take it you never told him about us?”

“Us? There is no ‘us,’ Riley. One day a month does not an ’us’ make.”

Riley smiled. She intended to enjoy dumping him, getting some of the power and control back for the first time in a long while. She continued.

“Honey, how long do you think you can go on this way? A lot of the girls in the harem are worried about you. You’re knocking on forty, you know.”

“Please don’t call it a harem. If you call it that, I might start calling it that. I started this arrangement because I was tired of everybody hating me for having a lot of sex with a lot of different women. I’m tired of being the bad guy. I don’t like people acting like I’m a predator. This way at least there’s no lying, and everybody knows where they stand.”

“Plus you don’t have to pay rent.”

“Yeah. That’s nice.”

“And when’s the last time you told any random woman about the arrangement?”

“I’m discreet.”

“Because you know any woman who hears about it is going to hate you.”

“I wish women could be a little more understanding about this. You’ve never had any cause to complain, have you?”

“Honey, I’ve been a part of the arrangement for more than two years now, and I look forward to the twenty-fifth of every month like a high holy day. You never disappoint. But I never kidded myself for a second that this was a real relationship. Don’t you want a real relationship? Don’t you want to get married one day?”

“I’ve never understood the point of marriage, at least for me. You’re getting married; you explain it to me. What is it for?”

“Lots of things. Companionship. Not dying alone.”

“Oh, what’s the big deal about dying alone? If a couple is married for fifty years, unless they die together in a car accident, at least one of them is going to die alone. Right?”

“So you really don’t ever want to get married?”

“I really don’t. I don’t even like dating. Seduction kind of bores me. I really think I don’t have any ability to fall in love. But maybe some day I’ll meet a woman who might change my mind. I don’t want to say it’s totally impossible. It might happen.”

“Not if you never date, it won’t. Honey, I’m not kidding. A lot of the girls are worried about you.”

“Do you all get together and talk about me, or something?”

“There’s a Web site.”

“Of course. Of course there is. Please don’t tell me the name.”

She kissed him on the shoulder again and said, “Your clothes are hanging up in the usual place, Riley.”

“Thanks. Your fiancé didn’t find them?”

“If he’s checking out the clothes in my closet, we’ve got worse problems than you. Forget the dry-cleaning bill, OK? It’s on the house.”

He stood, turned, and leaned down to kiss her good-bye on the lips, but she gave him her cheek.

“Denied!” he said.

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Genre – Murder / Mystery

Rating – R

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Steven O’Connor – Indie publishing

Indie publishing: A direction in which I was pushed. And so I jumped

by Steven O’Connor

I am one of millions of readers who also write. No one’s counted, but I’m quite sure that’s how many we are. We’re like the countless music lovers the world over who also play an instrument or sing (to varying degrees of success). Our pens and pencils, our scraps of paper, our notebooks (paper-based and electronic) and our keyboards – these are our musical instruments. We are everywhere and we stretch from those who are happy to simply bash out something and immediately publish it – in a wild breeze of confidence – to those who toil hard to hone what they produce, in the desire to create something that will be seen as unique and memorable. Most of us who work hard to improve our craft sit somewhere around the center of those two points.

For me, writing is the completion of a circle. We are all consumers. We consume food. We consume art and music. We consume stories. Some of us continuously consume stories! Movies. Books. News. Even gossip. But we are creators too. To me, it feels wrong not to want to also produce something, if I can. (And hope it is good enough for others to enjoy. That would be nice too.)

I do slip into sleep more easily at night when I feel I have created something that day. It’s very satisfying. And I know others feel this way too. I meet them every day on Twitter. Writers like me. While having an audience is not an essential element to the creative process, it still feels good to know others might be interested in your creation. And the opportunity has never been greater to put our creative works out there and invite others to come and see. The publishing industry has split open and millions are pouring in. Myself included.

I am also grateful that I had the opportunity to traditionally publish – however brief. EleMental was written on a first-generation laptop back when laptops were as heavy as milk crates, and long before ebooks were a reality. It took one year to write the novel but nearly ten years to get it published, even though the manuscript had won a national scholarship award early on in the proceedings. Does that seem like a long time? It’s a common story.

I present to you now, in one fast paragraph, my one-and-only experience of traditional publishing…

EleMental was published by Pier 9/Murdoch Books (one of Australia’s major publishers) in 2010. The staff publisher who bought my book subsequently left Pier 9, the company dropped its young adult fiction list, which had been that staff publisher’s baby, and the whole publishing house went on to be bought out by Allen and Unwin. The end.

As delightful as the people were that I met during that brief experience, perhaps you will understand why I say after nearly ten years of trying to get there, it felt a bit of a letdown. Hence, like countless other writers, indie writing has been a direction in which I feel I have been pushed. And so I jumped.

Self-publishing is no longer a dirty word. At least it isn’t, if you do it properly, never letting go of quality. Indie writing is a valid, exciting new route to publishing – one that can also include traditional publishing in the future if that option opens up for you and you want to take it (sometimes called the hybrid approach – sounds like a car, or a rosebush).

The indie approach can be exhausting as you have to steer all of your own promotion. Imagine taking that task on immediately after self-publishing your book, with all of the work it entails. And it can be lonely when you know of no one else – outside of the virtual arena – also pursuing this route (it’s yet to catch on in Australia in a big way, unlike the UK and the US).

But it has one very distinct advantage: you are in control. I am still new to indie-publishing, but my experience of the traditional publishing process has given me an appreciation of the importance of control, one I would not let go off lightly if ever I found myself traditionally publishing again.

Another significant advantage of indie publishing is speed. Don’t get me wrong, you should never take shortcuts with your writing just because you’re indie publishing. You must be as slow as you need to be. But traditional publishing, that’s another story, it is so slow. Apart from it taking a long time to break into traditional publishing, it also takes a long time for your manuscript to shuffle through the publishing process.

I would love to have published EleMental soon after I’d finished it, even a year or so later. I absolutely believe the book still depicts a fun, tongue-in-cheek future. But some aspects are no longer as interesting as I would have liked. Video gaming, on which the futuristic plot is based, has come a long way since I wrote ‘The End’ after the last line (I don’t really write that). When I finished the final draft, the world did not have consoles like the Wii or the Xbox, or online console video gaming, or the iPad. That last one is particularly irking, as both EleMental and its follow-up, MonuMental, feature something very like an iPad – called a Zeepad. I’ve a hard time convincing people I came up with my Zeepad before iPads emerged to rule the world (for the time being).

However, the professional social work influence that I have in my writing remains as pertinent as ever, sadly – the human condition does not date like technology, even if we wished some aspects did, such as addictive behavior.

All writing is a lonely business. But there is a flourishing indie writing community on the internet with numerous collectives. I belong to the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), a global collective based centrally in London, but (thanks to the internet) present everywhere.

I still have a lot to learn about the indie approach, particularly around marketing and business management, neither of which comes naturally to me, but also around social media. And there always seems to be something new to learn about information technology! To be honest, it never seems to end. But I have become far more aware of how to step up and be counted amongst the countless other indie writers out there in the world. I meet with many of them every day through Goodreads, through Twitter (especially through twitter), through Facebook, and through numerous other social media avenues.  The important thing is to remember why you are there in the first place. You have enjoyed creating something and now you’re jumping into indie publishing to say to the world, Come and see what I’ve made. I hope you like it.

Don’t forget to drop by sometime and say hi. I’m always around and love to chat – on twitter, on my website, on Goodreads, on Facebook…

Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenWriting (@StevenWriting)

StevenWriting website: http://stevenoconnorwriting.com/

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5189661.Steven_O_Connor

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/StevenWriting/140091559338623

Little Readings: http://stevenoconnorwriting.com/little-readings/

Steven O’Connor writes young adult fiction with a futuristic bent. His writing is influenced by Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), Blade Runner, Dr Who, and just about every sci-fi film and TV show you could possibly think of. His EleMental and MonuMental ebooks are available through Amazon.



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Genre – Young Adult / Science Fiction

Rating –PG

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Website http://stevenoconnorwriting.com/

Orangeberry Book of the Day – Mars Rising by Mark David Major

1 At the Threshold of the Gate

The lieutenant retired to his quarters, removed his tunic, and tossed it across the arm of a chair. He threw his weary body down on the bunk. The collection of bones, ligaments, and tendons in his left knee made a cracking sound as he stretched out the lingering injury. A feeling of anxiety troubled him. He could not adopt the captain’s levity about the situation. The captain had played the role of a man on the brink of Vassalage for so long now that he was, under most circumstances, incapable of gravity. The lieutenant’s position was different. He was young, full of spirit, and most of his life was still before him. He had a lot to lose. He could not dismiss the dread he felt about an uncertain future clouded by civil war. For all he knew, Hande could make good on her boast to raise millions to oppose the Commander, whether through the utility of her foot or more practical means.
His eyes refused to embrace the serenity of sleep. He tried swallowing a sleep aid but it had no effect. His mind raced like a tornado in the lonesome prairie of his quarters. What had the prophecy about the Commander meant? The implications were disturbingly obvious. And because of this, and many other things, the lieutenant could not rest. The lights eventually rose to simulate daybreak within the artificial environment of the ship. The bright light caused the lieutenant’s eyes to momentarily water. An alarm sounded throughout the ship. The lieutenant quickly rose, threw on his tunic, and exited the quarters. He methodically proceeded through the metal corridors of the ship to the bridge. He entered and saw the captain was already there, standing erect among some of the crew gathered about him. The great armada had remained poised throughout the artificial night, holding its position just beyond the invisible boundary formed by the lunar orbit. Other soldiers soon pushed past the lieutenant onto the bridge. One could sense their eagerness, their desire for events to unfold however as they would, rather than continue to bear the strain of this static pause. A sense of anticipation afflicted every person on the bridge. It was reflective of the thoughts and emotions assaulting every member of the crew on every ship of the armada at that particular moment in the drama.

____________

The crackling sound of an incoming transmission caused everyone to turn towards the center of the bridge. They watched as the light of a hologram slowly flickered into existence, as if arriving from some faraway place and unknown time. The hologram materialized into a shape. It was the image of a woman, larger than life and towering over everyone. It seemed apparent this image was simultaneously appearing before everyone on every ship of the armada. The woman was almost painfully beautiful. Her skin was paler than normal for a human, her eyes were a lush dark green, and her lips narrow but inviting. About her shoulders spilled a mane of curly black hair, which miraculously appeared both unkempt and meticulously groomed. There was something eternal about the vision of womanhood before them. One could easily infer by her dress that she was a Marineris priestess. The sheer garment she wore displayed the nubile shape of her lithe body without revealing any details of the concealed flesh. The woman’s appearance silenced everyone. Now, the low rumbling of the engines powering the ship was the only thing that could be heard.

She raised her right hand to her face and, with her middle and forefinger extended, gracefully touched her forehead and then lowered her right hand to her heart, which she also touched, thus completing the accepted manner of greeting in Marineris ritual; tracing the ‘path of the spear’ from head to heart.

Once completed, she opened her mouth and began to sing. The melody she sang was of pure joy. A joy unlike any of them had ever experienced or even before dreamt. It was a very old song. She sang in a dialect long forgotten to most humans. The translation of the song was:

Exultation, lovely flame of God, Sons and daughters of Mars, We enter fire empowered, Heaven our reward!

Embracing that Destiny, Share your kiss among the stars, Brothers in arms and soul, A loving Father, your true north!

Can you sense this time, brothers! Seek salvation in the valley, Above the stars, you’ll dwell.

Embracing that Destiny, Share your kiss among the stars,
Sisters in arms and soul, A loving Mother, our constant!

Can you sense this time, sisters! Seek salvation in the valley, Above the stars, you’ll dwell. The priestess continued to sing by repeating these verses but then the chattering voices of the soldiers articulated thoughts into words. Phrases like ‘the Creator is with us’ and ‘the Holy Mother blesses our path’ escaped their lips. Another voice rose above the others, “Ran’s hand will strike down our enemies with the force of God!” Several of the soldiers fell to their knees in an almost violent manner to worship before the image of the priestess. The hologram slowly began to fade. The song also began to drift away. The lieutenant continued to watch until the last moment when the image at last vanished from their view. The vision of the woman dissolved into an electronic mist as if consumed in a cloud of smoke. Once the image had completely disappeared, an echo of the song hung briefly in the air. For a moment, many believed they could reach out and capture the dying embers of that song to prevent its escape. A few even reached out their hands in contemplation of the attempt but the song then faded into oblivion. There was silence.

The captain began to bellow orders. “The order is given! Proceed into the forbidden zone! Man your stations or get wherever you’re supposed to be!”

There was a moment of quiet and then the entire bridge burst into frenzied activity. Crew members returned their attention to the stations in front of them. Ordinary soldiers exited the bridge. All had now accepted their roles in the coming drama, each according to their own talents and beliefs. After the song of the priestess, it was clear the crew and soldiers were suddenly triumphant in their demeanor and determined in their purpose. The entire weight of the mighty armada slowly edged forward in united action. So began the fateful crossing of the Moon’s orbit into the forbidden zone around the birthplace of the Sovereignty. Ran had begun his thrust into the very womb of humanity.

The captain made his way across the bridge. He stood beside the lieutenant and whispered like a conspirator with a wry grin on his face. “Some trick of the Commander’s, I suspect.”

The lieutenant merely nodded his understanding.
Was it? Or were the mystics of the Marineris Sect intervening in this great drama on behalf of the Commander? Were they blessing the path he had dared to tread in pursuit of glory and honor?

____________

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Genre – Science Fiction

Rating – PG13

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Fiona Ingram – What Inspired me to Write My Book

What Inspired me to Write My Book

by Fiona Ingram

Writing a book was a complete accident. Although I worked in magazine publishing, I had often thought about writing a book, but couldn’t think of what to write. Then my mother moved the goalposts and everything changed! I went to Egypt with my mom and two nephews and decided to write a short story for them to remember their trip. The short story ballooned into a book, The Secret of the Sacred Scarab, which exploded into a book series, Chronicles of the Stone.

My nephews were then aged 10 and 12. I felt a particular affinity with my 10-year-old nephew, possibly the result of lots of babysitting when he was small. We did most of our sightseeing together so I experienced closely all that he felt during our trip. In my young hero I found many of the wonderful characteristics of my nephew: Eagerness to absorb every second of the trip; excitement and wonder when faced with the massive monuments of an ancient civilization; an unswerving belief in the possibility of amazing things happening to them while on the trip. I saw the magic and adventure through my young nephew’s eyes and it really moved me. I remember how I had felt at that age, when any and everything was possible. You just had to believe!

My nephews both displayed the most incredible enthusiasm one usually finds in that 10-12 age group, when kids are off on the most exciting escapade of their lives. It seemed a natural progression when writing the short story (that became the book!) to base the adventure and the characters on the people who had shared the trip with me: Mom, my nephews, and the people we met along the way. I found the idea of two young boys merging with my two nephews, and the characters just grew. I had always intended the short story to feature the boys themselves. It was going to be something they could show their friends at school. As I wrote the adventure, I kept seeing my nephews and imagining how the youngest one particularly would react when he found out he was to undertake a task of monumental proportions and in so doing save the world.

I did not know there would be a sequel until I neared completion of Book One. By then, the mythology and prehistory of the adventure had solidified. I chose seven books because seven is such a mystical number. In Book Two, The Search for the Stone of Excalibur, the heroes discover ancient clues that show them the path their quest will take. The boys discover a strange inscription and a picture that help them create a spiritual and physical map for what faces them. They are also joined by a girl, about their own ages, who is being fostered by their aunt. This also changes the relationships in the subsequent books and creates many interesting angles. Here is a strange case of art imitating life. In the year we made the trip and I began writing the book, I fostered an African child, a little girl, from an underprivileged background. My youngest nephew (then 10) bonded with Mabel, my foster-daughter, and before I knew it, she was a character in the second book. (A happy ending: a little while later I legally adopted Mabel and now have a daughter.)

Read more about South African children’s author Fiona Ingram and her award-winning middle grade adventure novel The Secret of the Sacred Scarab by visiting http://www.FionaIngram.com or http://www.secretofthesacredscarab.com. The Search for the Stone of Excalibur (Book Two) will be available in late 2013, while Fiona is working on The Temple of the Crystal Timekeeper (Book Three).

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Genre – Juvenile Fiction

Rating – G

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Pistachio the Tyrant (Tales of Pistachio) by Elvis Deane

Things aren’t going well for Prince Pistachio. Just as his grandpapa dies and revolution sweeps the kingdom, the bratty young lad is betrayed by his most loyal servant and sent into exile.

Lost in the woods with only an adventurous rabbit to accompany him, Pistachio’s courage is tested time and again. While his only goal is to find a way home,along the way he might discover a thing or two about himself.

Pistachio the Tyrant is written by Elvis Deane, with cover art and illustrations by Samantha Turnbull.

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Genre - Children’s Fantasy

Rating – PG

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Website http://impossibilia.com/

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Orangeberry Free Alert - Transcender: First Time by Vicky Savage

Transcender: First Time - Vicky Savage

Amazon Kindle US

Amazon Kindle UK

Genre - Fantasy

Rating - PG

4.6 (68 reviews)

Free until 25 July 2013

When a freak lightning storm turns terrifying, seventeen-year-old Jaden Beckett leaps for her life only to be glitched into an alternate universe. The destiny police want her out. Jaden's got other plans.
Ripped away from her quiet Connecticut life and dumped into a post-apocalyptic version of earth, Jaden lands smack in the middle of a kidnapping--her own!
Agent Ralston of the Inter-Universal Guidance Agency (IUGA) rescues her and helps her to assume a new identity. And what an amazing identity it is ...
In this world, she's Princess Jaden a member of the royal family of one of the three surviving nations. Plus, her mother's alive here--a miracle she never dreamed possible. If that weren't enough, she finds herself falling hard for Ryder Blackthorn, the half-Cherokee half-Irish outlaw who kidnapped her in the first place.
So, when IUGA finally gets its act together and is ready to send her home, Jaden's not budging. She's pretty sure Agent Ralston's been lying to her, and this whole thing isn't really a cosmic accident after all.
Can the powerful IUGA force her to leave? Or is Jaden what some in this strange land believe her to be--a Transcender with the ability to travel among alternate dimensions at will?

Orangeberry Book of the Day – Redwood Violet by Robin Mahle

CHAPTER 1

KATIE MADE HER way to the back of the plane. Lightheaded, heart still racing, she stood in the galley and spotted a tray of water set out for the passengers. A nagging thirst that was brought on by the intense dream from which she had just awakened consumed her. After three cupfuls, her tongue no longer felt like cotton still clinging to its boll. However, the water could not satiate the vivid images that were still swirling in her head. A dream, more like a nightmare, had been the cause of many sleepless nights of late. The best she could recall, it had been about two months since they first started.

“Excuse me,” Katie said, returning to her seat.

“You okay?” Spencer stood up to allow her to squeeze back into the middle seat.

Flying home, or at least close to it, was not something she relished or did frequently. Her current destination was as close to home as she had gotten in the last three years. However, the upcoming nuptials of her dearest friend was the reason this time. It just happened to be that Sam lived near her childhood home.

“I’m okay; I just needed some water,” Katie replied.

The flight was packed when they had boarded in Sacramento this morning. And that was after the sold-out flight from San Diego. Traveling from southern to northern California could sometimes be as difficult as a cross-country flight. Then, there was the forty-five minute drive to the suburbs outside of town, where Sam and her fiancé called home.

“Another dream?” Spencer asked.

She only nodded and shrugged her shoulders. Her post-nightmare routine—leaping out of bed, eyes, full of terror—was becoming something of a habit with which Spencer was growing accustomed. However, its occurrence during a brief nap was something new. Her fatigue was crossing into new levels of desperation.

The plane began its descent, the left wing tilting up towards the blue sky, high above the clouds to make the turn into Eureka. The jet engine groaned and a swift drop in elevation sent a shot of adrenalin through Katie’s body. Landing wasn’t as bad as the taking off; nevertheless, her tolerance for flight had decreased significantly over the past several years.

“I’m glad your parents will be at the wedding. It’s important for you to see them,” Spencer said.

Katie only tightened her seatbelt and prepared for the landing.

Rio Dell was a small town and was even smaller when Katie and Sam were growing up. Everyone knew each other, as was often the case in rural communities. So, when Sam mentioned she had sent an invitation to Katie’s parents, she was not surprised. Slightly disappointed, but not surprised. She knew it was Sam’s plan to get the three of them in the same room. A plan she might regret.

The wheels made contact with the runway in a rough fashion, forcing the plane to bounce up and down. As it slowed down, the drag pulled the plane forward. Relieved that she had touched ground, Katie opened her eyes and released the death grip she had on the arms of her seat.

“Come on, this’ll be fun!” Spencer patted her shoulder.

His sardonic wit was a quality she only mildly appreciated and this wasn’t one of those times.

“Sure! I’m looking forward to it.” She returned an equally ironic smile as they deplaned.

They were a good match for each other.

In the baggage claim area, Katie saw Sam in the distance and headed her way. Arms open and flashing her sparkling smile, Sam seemed thrilled at the sight of her old friend. Katie’s eyes brightened in response as she was both genuinely happy to see her friend and grateful the journey was over.

“How was your flight?” Sam asked. “It’s so good to see you!”

“You too, Sam; you look beautiful. The flight was all right. You know me, not much of a flyer.”

Spencer collected the bags from the conveyor and approached the two of them. “Hi, Sam, long time no see.” He leaned in for a hug from the waist up; appropriate physical contact for his girlfriend’s female friends.

“It has been a while. I’m so glad the both of you could come,” Sam said.

“Are you kidding? You know we wouldn’t miss your wedding.” Katie glanced around. “By the way, where’s Jarrod?”

“Oh, he’s driving around the airport, waiting for us to go to the curb. He didn’t want to pay for parking.”

Katie raised her eyebrows at Spencer as they followed Sam out of the terminal.

***

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Genre – Mystery  / Thriller / Suspense

Rating – PG

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