Dog Town

We welcome another author today. Please meet Debbie Richardson! Debbie's doing a virtual book blast tour for Dog Town, a Middle Grade fiction available April 1, 2020. The Book Blast Tour will take place April 1 - 7, 2020.

Debbie Richardson will be awarding a $20 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Please use the following link to place your comment:

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/28e4345f3319/

Blurb

Harry loves to race around the streets of Dog Town. When he stumbles upon the lost city of cats, he finds himself in a race against Dog Town’s fastest canine, Grizzly.

The winner of this race will have the power to save Cat World, or destroy it.

Harry wants to win, but there is one small problem. The race is in the ocean, and Harry is terribly afraid of water.

Can Harry overcome his fear of the water and save Cat Town?

Excerpt

HARRY snapped himself out of the trance.

 “Run!” he yelled, and every dog did exactly that.

But they took off in a disorderly fashion, like a handful of wound-up toys had been released onto a slippery surface.

Kevin started running first, but he became caught up in chasing his tail. He twirled and twirled, creating a mini tornado.

Teena barked so violently she propelled herself backwards. She only managed to stop when she bumped up against a six-foot-high stack of hubcaps. The metal discs came hurtling toward the dogs at an alarming speed.

Harry saw Teena jump out of the way. Then she reached for Pablo’s collar. She tugged and tugged, but her brother’s feet might as well have been concreted to the ground.

“Pablo!” Harry urged. He cried out again, more urgently this time. “Pablo! Run!”

Pablo stared at the big dogs as though he was hypnotised.

“Pablo!” Teena cried, pulling harder on his collar.

By now, Kevin’s mini tornado had taken on a life of its own. Wispy tendrils clutched madly at anything in reach, but they grasped only air. Seemingly angered by this, the vortex pulled itself into the shape of a bowling ball and made a beeline for Pablo and Teena.

Author bio and links

Debbie Richardson has published fiction novels as D L Richardson. She has published three young adults supernatural fiction novels, and science fiction and supernatural thrillers for adults. This is her first children’s book.

She was born in Dublin, Ireland and grew up in Australia. It was always crowded  and noisy in the family home. At one stage there were also three dogs, a cat, a budgie, and three mice living with seven people the same house.

Debbie learned to find a quiet space within books.

She now lives in the south coast of New South Wales with her husband and a small dog named Teeka.

Links:

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/DogTownKidsbook

Website:  www.dlrichardson.com

This book can be bought at the following online shops:

Kobo  

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Smashwords

iBooks

Paragon

Today we welcome author Shauna Alderson. Shauna's doing a virtual book blast tour for Paragon, a YA Fantasy available now from Zimbell House Publishing. The Book Blast Tour will take place March 30 to April 3, 2020.

Shauna Alderson will be awarding a $20 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Please use the following link to place your comment:

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/28e4345f3329/

Blurb

Now that high school is over, Randi just wants to live her quiet life in her little town, but it doesn’t feel right without her friends there. Ever the daredevils, they’ve gone to seek adventure in the capital city of Grandin, and Randi can’t help but feel left behind. Not to mention she definitely can’t stop thinking about that kiss she and Eddy shared before he left.

When Randi discovers a mysterious mark on her skin that matches an illustration in “A Handbook on Paragonhood”, she’s thrown into a world of powerful gods and ancient magic that she thought only existed in the myths. She’ll have to step out of her comfort zone—and into the dangerous streets of Grandin—to find a way to protect herself and the people she loves.

Randi’s not the only one with a secret, though, and she finds herself questioning who she can trust. Randi will have to wrestle with what it means to be a Paragon and how far she’s willing to go to do what’s right.

With the fate of the world on the line, can she live up to being one of the chosen?

Excerpt

Granite floor, walls like black static, and out of the moving darkness looms a door. I push its handle down, opening the door to a huge space.

A man and a woman circle each other like raptors, each brandishing a knife. The static-fuzz wall to my left is covered in weapon racks—everything from maces to swords to guns—and stone braziers, while the wall to my right is lined with punching bags and benches. A seemingly spaced-out old man sits on one of the benches, and a middle-aged guy fiddles with something on the furthest bench.

I don’t think I’m supposed to be here.

The middle-aged man lifts his head to watch the fight and sees me. “New girl,” he tells the others.

Everyone stops. The other two men simply seem bewildered, but the lady-predator with the knife might just kill me, judging from her glare.

“Uh, sorry, I'll just go,” I stammer. I pivot on my heels, but behind me, I only find blackness. No door.

My gut drops.

“Don’t be afraid,” the male fighter says. “We won’t hurt you.”

I peek over my shoulder as he discards his weapon onto the floor. That's not a hazard at all. “Where am I?” The words come out in a squeak.

He scratches the side of his head. “It’s—well, it’s hard to explain.”

“We call it the dreamscape,” the woman says. “We Paragons come here to hone our skills. You being here means you found out.”

She must be referring to the mark and the myths. I found out what I am, and now I show up here. Makes sense in a dream-logic sort of way.  

Author bio and links

Shauna Alderson began writing teen fantasy even before she was a teen. After she “grew up", she completed creative writing courses (and a BA in Development Studies) at the University of Calgary. When not reading or writing, she can usually be found teaching ESL, composing on the piano, creating art, or volunteering abroad. She also enjoys dessert, Studio Ghibli films, and being the silliest person she knows.

Links:

Website: https://shaunaalderson.com

Twitter: @AldersonShauna

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Paragon-Shauna-Alderson-ebook/dp/B0851YGGTW/

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/paragon-shauna-alderson/1136514085?ean=9781643901275

Chapters: https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/paragon/9990058018816-item.html

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/paragon-8

What after corona?

At the moment, practically all of the world is in lockdown. And this will remain so for several more weeks. Everyone's adjusting to it - willingly or not. But what afterwards?

There is no plan for later yet. How will we return to normality? Will we open the schools first, and later on the restaurants, then the shops? And when will it be safe to travel by air once more?

Many questions, and nobody has an answer. I had already assumed we'd need to cancel our trips in May and July, but hoped we'd be able to do the ones in November and December. Now it seems possible we won't be able to travel before the summer of 2021!

In this case, we'll have saved up a whole lot of money (I must confess, we spend a tidy sum on travel throughout the year) and with it we'll be able to make a long trip during July and August 2021 - and best to some far away places.

As of yesterday, the racks in the supermarket were filled once more. There is even toilet paper to be found - just now that my (big) delivery has been dropped at our front door. I suppose we have toilet paper for some months to go... What I also experienced, is that it's better shopping in smaller supermarkets than the bigger ones. Less people and they seem to have more stock.

For the rest, my life during corona times is not so much different than the one I had before. The only difference is that my sister is constantly home - but then I'll have to get used to that when she takes her pension.

And how are you doing? Are you coping?

When fiction becomes reality

When filmmakers created the tv-series "Cordon" for VTM (Flemish TV channel) they didn't realize that their scenario would become reality one day.

"Cordon" (made some 5 years ago) deals with a neighborhood in Antwerp, where a dangerous infection is found to be spreading around. The mayor decides to close down this neighborhood and keep it isolated from the surrounding parts. Then the series concentrates on the behavior of the people living withing these restricions - those who follow the rules to a letter, those who are egoistic and start hoarding food and other supplies, those who want to escape, ...

Of course, "Cordon" is not the only work that has been created. Other authors also wrote books - which were thought to be science-fiction - about plagues and lockdowns.

Nobody living now could have anticipated the situation in which we find ourselves at the moment. We haven't lived through one or two world wars, but we live in times of corona. Every country practically shut down, most borders closed, no air traffic, restrictions on travelling any further than the place where you live, only shops which sell food allowed to open...

Talking about shops, even now there are still shortages when you walk into the supermarket. No problems in finding fresh produce (vegetables, fruit, meat, bread) but some items are already gone for weeks. Like toilet paper. Nowhere to be found. Last Saturday I had to search the internet to find some, and finally could order some packs abroad. It should be delivered tomorrow or the day after. A good thing, because we're up to our last rolls!

All my friends find themselves in the same situation. How are you coping?

Change in everyday life

My life's a bit different now that my sister is working from home.

Normally, she leaves home around 7.30 am, and then I've got the run of the house until 5 pm. I can read my newspaper in all peace and quiet, enjoy my cup of (strong) coffee, go to the shops in the morning for some errands. Then read for a while with a second cup of coffee and enjoy a bit of chocolate with it. Followed by doing some chores in the house, like filling the washing machine, doing some ironing or cleaning. In the afternoon some proofreading (have been doing this for a couple of years already) for Rogue Phoenix Press and more coffee.

Now I find I can't concentrate fully on the manuscript I'm going through. My sister can't stop giving comments on what she's doing and most of the times asks for my opinion.

Another thing is I can't go to the shops every day anymore. First, it's not advisable and next my sister wants some excercise as well. Today, she will do the shopping.

And I can't have my chocolate in the morning! Chris doesn't do it, and I can't have her known I've got a secret stash of chocolate bars... She's concerned for her blood sugar. I've found out that having a bit of chocolate every day doesn't do any harm for mine, because my blood sugar remains stable, with or without chocolate.

I hope the situation will go back to normal after some time. Good news from China, where the contamination seems to have stopped. Hopefully by the end of May, beginning of June we'll be able to a restaurant once more and are allowed to go to the coast or the Ardennes.

Finding Jackson

Today, let's meet author Anne Holster. Anne is doing a virtual book tour for Finding Jackson, a New Adult romance available now. This tour will run from December 31st 2019 to April 9th, 2020.

During the tour, Anne will be awarding a prize ($50 Amazon/BN gift card)  to one randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter. Please use the following link to place your comment:
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/28e4345f3244/

Blurb

It's 1977 - Star Wars is breaking records at the box office, Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run tour is taking the country by storm, and born-and-bred Jersey girl Annalise Keller has fallen in love for the first and last time. Hot and charismatic with dreams of making it as a rock star, Keith "Ace" Foxx is everything a teenage girl dreams of. He falls as hard for Anna as she does for him and the two decide to run off to California in search of his big break. Fate has other plans though, and several years and three kids later, Ace has traded in his guitar for a job at the local post office and Anna has become a symbol of all he has given up. Ace spends most nights at the local bar, trying to drink away his anger and resentment.

Flash forward a decade, and their youngest child, Jackson, is headed nowhere fast. In a life filled with meaningless jobs and too much partying, music is his only true escape from the pain of a childhood that abruptly ended one rainy night. The accident had destroyed his family and left him with a slew of unanswered questions.

Everything changes the night Jackson meets Leah. Shy and reserved, she doesn't smoke and barely drinks; she certainly doesn't put out. Not exactly the girl from the Bon Jovi videos he watched as a kid. Yet, before he knows it, she has become his world.

Then, just when it looks like his dreams might come true, betrayal and loss once again threaten everything he holds dear. As Jackson struggles to keep his world from spinning out of control, he knows one thing for sure, the choices he makes now will either be the start of a whole new life, or it just might be the end of him.

Excerpt

It was Halloween the first time I laid eyes on him. I’ll never forget it because Halloween had always been my favorite holiday, maybe because for some reason I was allowed to run wild. Things I’d never get away with were suddenly okay to do on Halloween. For instance, staying out after dark or eating candy before dinner, dressing inappropriately, and by inappropriately, I mean going out without a coat when the weather dipped below fifty degrees. Things you think are cool when you’re ten years old, which was how old I was that year. Most people may not clearly remember their tenth Halloween, but I do and with very good reason, because it was the day I fell in love. You might think it crazy for a fifth grader to arrive home after a night of trick-or-treating and announce that she’s in love and you probably wouldn’t be the only one, but that’s exactly what I did – and I was totally serious.

It was dusk, and the air was electric with excitement. It had been a lucrative afternoon and my three friends and I had split up just long enough to empty our bags of candy, grab something to eat, then regroup in an hour to hit the other side of town. Not wanting to waste any time I decided to cut through the woods by my house, something I didn’t usually do with darkness approaching. It was a fateful decision that would end up altering the course of my life.

Author bio and links

Anne Holster resides in Northern New Jersey with her husband and two children. When she's not writing she enjoys spending time with her family, playing tennis and reading angsty romance novels. She is currently working on her fourth book.

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/Anne-Holster-885353721587102/?ref=bookmarks

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13762475.Anne_Holster

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZR3GWXF/ref=sr_1_2

Warlike conditions

Yesterday evening (very late) our government decided to close down the whole country. Schools will be closed - as of Monday, my sister is going to work at home - just as all restaurants and cafés. All events are cancelled (sports, culture, ...). And shops will close during the weekend, except those that sell food.

You could see the effect already this morning. I had to go to the butcher's in town and it was full of customers - unseen before. They do have a lot of clientele, but not so many at a given moment. And all those before me needed a kilo of this, a kilo of that, ... So stupid. As if the shops won't have anything to sell tomorrow!

I don't know if these measures will really help. Parents can send their kids to school if they don't have anyone to care for them - there should be some teachers presents to look after them. And trains/trams/buses are still running. More than enough ways to get contaminated.

And Belgium is not the only country in this situation. The same goes for many other country in the EU.

Chris and I are just so happy we'd been to London last weekend to see Ball & Boe in the O2 Arena before everything got cancelled - and for the near future, we don't have anything planned. Just at the end of May - and hopefully, by that time, everything will be back to normal!

Murder at Eagle's Nest

Please welcome Pat Duggan today. Pat's doing a virtual book blast tour for Murder at Eagle's Nest, a cozy mystery available now. The Book Blast Tour will take place March 3 - 9, 2020.

The author is awarding a $10 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Please use the following link to place your comment: 

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/28e4345f3313/

Blurb

Murder at Eagle's Nest is a gentle mystery novel set in a peaceful vacation resort in Apalachicola on Florida's Forgotten Coast. The area is still reeling after Hurricane Michael made landfall only thirty-five miles to the west, on Mexico Beach. It uncovers fraud, driven by greed and arrogance. However, everything changes when a body is discovered. The police detective brought in from Tallahassee, quickly enlists the help of two women staying at the resort, who have unusual insight. They ultimately uncover critical evidence, which unmasks the perpetrator.

Excerpt

In the end, Michael made landfall on October 10th 2018 as the first category five hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland for more than twenty-five years.  Its ‘bullseye’ was Mexico Beach, and the result was that much of this thriving little coastal town was almost completely destroyed.  Several days after the storm, a worker in the nearby forest, found a weather station that had been blown inland by the storm.  He was surprised to discover that the data was still intact, and it had recorded a 206mph wind gust before it was blown away and stopped recording.

The pier had been the signature landmark in Mexico beach since 1967 and had provided a place for tourists to fish, or sit drinking a cup of coffee in the morning, or watch the sun set in the evening.  Now it was completely gone, there was not even one wooden post sticking up out of the surf to show it had ever existed, except in the photographs and memories of generations of tourists.  Most of the surrounding homes and condos had been reduced to rubble sitting on concrete foundations.  Even the Federal government (FEMA) had declared the community as ‘wiped out’.  The few homes that had survived were newer homes which had been built on stilts, but even those stood in varying degrees of disrepair with tattered siding and gaping holes in the roof.  Everywhere you looked was destruction and devastation!

As Hurricane Michael swirled in the Gulf, Anna Kohl and Hazel Davies were a thousand miles north, safe in their home near Columbus, Ohio watching it on the news and praying for the people in the panhandle.  Storms were always a time for prayer, but their prayers were intensified on this occasion as they had friends on the Forgotten Coast and only six months earlier, they had purchased a small condominium in Apalachicola as an investment and an occasional winter retreat.  Their friends had evacuated ahead of the storm, so they were safe, but their homes and properties were still a cause for concern.

Author bio and links

What the author says about herself:

Originally from Manchester, England but moved to the U.S. over 30 years ago.  I have an accounting background in both countries.  Several years ago, I discovered an interest in writing.  My two previous books, Finding God in an RV and The Power Within, document my spiritual journey.  However, as a longtime lover of murder mysteries, with a passion to follow plots and figure out the perpetrator, it was time for a new direction.  I decided to ‘try my hand’ at weaving my own story, and true to my character, I had to tie up all the loose ends.  Murder at Eagle's Nest is my first mystery novel, and I am already working on the next mystery for my amateur detectives, Hazel and Anna to solve.

Links:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/writesstoriesrealandimagined

Amazon Book Link:  www.amazon.com/Murder-Eagles-Nest-Pat-Duggan/dp/1711002771/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=murder+at+eagles+nest&qid=1581112060&sr=8-1

Weekend London

The corona virus doesn't stop us from doing what we intended. This afternoon, we're off for a weekend London. Not because of the nice weather (it's raining once more, and looks like it'll continue to do so) but because we want to attend Ball&Boe's Back Together show in the O2 Arena tomorrow night.

We often do this, go to the UK for a show or performance. It's often easier there to get good tickets than in Belgium. Here, big companies buy up all the prime seats and then sell them on to their customers. You have to be extremely lucky to be able to get a few tickets for yourself. Later this year, we have managed to get tickets in Antwerp to the Celine Dion concert. I was ready at my computer when the presale started, and this way we got first class tickets.

Besides all this, it's always nice to be in London. We've been there oh so many times already and yet we still discover places/things we've never seen before. We'll be returning in summer, for another show and then in autumn we'll be in Birmingham.

Corona virus is spreading

As the days go by, more and more cases of the new corona virus COVID19 pop up in Europe. Here in our country, there were 14 cases counted yesterday (who knows how many there will be today?). Most of these patients had gone to the north of Italy during the spring break (which was last week, the same period we were in South Africa).

We already noticed a lot of mouth masks at the airport on our arrival back from Cape Town. People are afraid of getting affected - and they don't realize that a mouth mask doesn't really help.

You notice that people are getting afraid. In the supermarkets, people start hamstering stuff like rice and other products that will keep for a long time.

I think that such panic is a bit exaggerated. Corona is like the flu - which also kills a few thousand persons a year. You don't have to be afraid, just be somewhat careful. Try to avoid big masses and wash your hands regurlarly. That helps from spreading the virus.

Schools are already cancelling their Easter trips to Italy. It's a tradition in the last year of secondary school to make a trip with the entire class during the Easter break. Very popular are places like Rome, Florence and Venice. And it is in the north of Italy that the outbreak of corona exploded.

We also have planned a trip to the north of Italy (Milan) but only in summer. I'm not going to cancel yet - most likely the virus will be out of the country by then. I can cancel my hotel up to the day before arrival, so should the government advise against travelling to Italy, I'll not lose any money.

Back from South Africa

I haven't been around for a while, because I was having a holiday in South Africa. Just returned yesterday, after an eleven hours flight from Cape Town.

Chris and I had a great time there. First, we enjoyed the nice summer weather. In the southern hemisphere it is late summer now. Most of the days we had temperatures around 30° Celsius. Quite warm, but oh so lovely!

We made different tours to explore the country, and even went paragliding one day, but also relaxed at Cape Town's Waterfront or at the hotel pool, sipping cocktails or having a nice lunch with seaview.

I'll be posting a report of this trip on my travel blog shortly, as soon as our pictures get uploaded to this computer.

And of course, I'll be able to post more often!