Your Secret Library - Spring Issue by BooksGoSocial

Spring Reading Magazine

Spring reading magazine Editor-in-Chief - Tanja Slijepčević Associate Editor - Laurence O’Bryan Graphic Designer - Mirna Gilman Ranogajec

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Spring Reading Magazine

BooksGoSocial

BooksGoSocial.com Admin@booksgosocial.com bgsauthors.com

04 Editor’s Letter 20 Short Stories 21 Drama in the Theatre by Chris Calder 27 The Rose Slayer A Short Story by Stephen Bentley 30 The AD by Man by Mary Ann Cherry 35 Sinbad’s Sofa by Dirk B. Sayers

40 Book Excerpts

Spring Reading Magazine

Table of contents

41 Dressing Stone by Scott Feero 47 The Hunt for Billy’s Dad by Robert Solem 53 Jessica: The Autobiography of An Infant by Jeﬀrey Von Glahn 59 In My World by Daniel Pietrzak 62 A Change of Rules by L. L. Thomsen

65 Articles 66 How to Make Scenes Move by S. P. Brown 69 A Matter of Trust by Holly Bargo 73 Revisit your anchors - 3 strategies for achieving creative goals amidst your busy life by Andrew Kooman 77 Are You Living Your Dream Life? By Lisa Ortigara Crego 82 Producing a self-published audiobook by Robert J. Emery

84 Book Reviews 85 The Family Tree: Coping with Loss Through Literature Review by Camilla Korth 88 The Big Bang of a New Kind of Mystery Review by Holly Bell

Spring Reading Magazine

You are very welcome to our Spring magazine ‘19!

From historical fiction, edge-of-your-seat thrillers, humor, true stories, scorching romances with a little bit of suspense, and some fantasy, we have an eclectic mix of reads for you! We start with some good old-fashioned mystery - who is the Rose Slayer in Stephen Bentley’s short story? The answer might hit close to home! If you prefer stories with a touch of supernatural, don’t miss Mary Ann Cherry’s short story featuring a banshee.

Cat lovers should not miss Simbadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Sofa - a few things reveal our character as our relationship with animals. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t miss our excepts section, for anyone who wants a taste of writing before committing to a full book.

Spring Reading Magazine

Holly Bell analyses the appeal of the Queen of Mystery - Agatha Christie, of course! She is also, understandably, the best-selling novelist of all time.

Authors Holly Bargo and S. P. Brown offer some advice on writing - how to make scenes move in your novel, and how to create a believable protagonist. Andrew Kooman shares some eternal advice, no matter what your calling is. This and much more in our new magazine! And if you have any ideas for articles or things you would like to see covered in our magazines, let me know. Tanja Slijepcevic Editor in Chief Spring Magazine 2019

What Lies in the Shadows: How Truth Healed a Splintered Mind by Jean Brunson Terrifying nightmares and overwhelming shame brought Kathy to counseling, where she hoped to find the truth about the past she didn’t remember. She didn’t know she had seventy personalities. As we pulled back the layers of her life, she remembered many times in her childhood when her mother took her to cult “churches.” The leaders tortured and raped her.

Corporate Crap: Lessons Learned from 40 Years in Corporate America by Howard Harrison

Spring Reading Magazine

Corporate Crap takes a humorous look at the business practices that cause people to look for new employment: meetings, performance reviews, downsizing and bosses from hell; competing for wall offices or asking if you can leave early; dress codes, task forces, brainstorming and engagement surveys; flip charts, org charts, hard stops and hard-ons. All of this and more is Corporate Crap.

The Hunt for Billy’s Dad (Merry Marauders Book 5) by Robert Solem A boy wants to hire the Merry Marauders to track down his missing dad. Five days previously, the dad left Tucson for Show Low in the Arizona White Mountains to find his runaway wife. Impressed with the kid, they decide to give the search a few days, pro bono of course. They are rewarded with jail time from the cops and far worse from certain of the townspeople. Plus, there’s an inconvenient murder to complicate matters.

Getting Over Growing Older by Brigitte Nioche A Humorous Memoir of Discovering the Challenges of Aging Not ready to be old yet? Follow the advice of Brigitte Nioche - a fashion consultant and former model - and learn how staying positive will make your future brighter. “Brigitte Nioche’s timely book provides insightful and common sense tips for how to navigate something we all hope to achieve---leading a happy and healthy life as we get older. We all struggle with the process of aging but we all hope not to be tortured by growing older. Brigitte presents a wealth of information that, if followed, will make our lives so much more pleasurable than otherwise.” - Dr. Joe De Simone

Emerald Coast: Free Money by Michael Guillebeau

Murder in Palm Beach: The Homicide That Never Died by Bob Brink A prominent Palm Beach man is shot to death in his home, and a petty hoodlum is framed. The novel, based on a sensational 1976 murder, reveals shocking information never made public about who the real killer and the person behind the deed were. The hoodlum and a reporter eventually collaborate in a search for the real murderer. Is he captured?

Spring Reading Magazine

Foreword Reviews said, “Emerald Coast is a freewheeling Florida mystery from Michael Guillebeau...edgy and fun. Characters are intensely inhabited...Emerald Coast is an immersive read.”

Gator Girl: The Royal Seduction (Book 1) by Kari Nelson Betrayed by her best friend, who first, stole and then married the man that she loved, Kelsey sets out on a perilous journey to right the wrong by offering up her virginity. This all goes haywire when her brothers interfere, introducing their friend, Royal Prince Stephen Lyons, who is after some revenge of his own. And Kelsey’s virginity is the perfect prize.

Falling for Katie by J M Ralley Suffering from amnesia, Katie is held captive by a man who states they are married. Snowed in, she has no way if escape. Can she survive long enough to be rescued and learn to trust another man?

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NanoMorphosis by Marla L. Anderson

[W]ell-paced throughout. A thoroughly creative tale ... - (Kirkus Reviews) [A] book worth reading. The characters are interesting, realistic and a whole lot more. I will definitely be looking for the second book in this series because NanoMorphosis is a book I won’t be forgetting anytime soon. - (Readers’ Favorite)

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Earth is depleted and terrorized by an alien race. One man pushes to expand beyond the solar system, while another works in secret to re-engineer humans themselves. Their rivalry will threaten the future of mankind, and forever change one woman caught in the middle. Adventure, romance, and aliens come together in a page turner you won’t want to end.

Dementia: The Journey Ahead: A Practical Guide for In-Home Caregivers by Susan Scarff Within a year of receiving her husband’s diagnosis, Susan Kiser Scarff had a classic case of caregiver burnout. She couldn’t concentrate at work. Friends drifted away. Overwhelmed, she struggled to make the transition from Red’s wife to his protector, nurse, and mother. Susan’s experience as a first-time caregiver, recorded in these pages with grace, wisdom, and humor, prove just how much there is to learn: finances have to be handled a different way in case the patient decides to make a lone trip to the bank; aggressive behavior is a constant threat; safety becomes a concern in every aspect of daily living. Filled with practical advice for every stage of the disease’s progression, including information on support groups to help you prevent burnout, questionnaires designed to keep your loved one safe, and checklists to give you control in this time of unknowns, Dementia: The Journey Ahead will help you help your loved one—every step of the way.

If you are a caregiver - this is a must read! This book, unlike others I have read, does not go into the “poor me’s”. Rather, not only does it tell of the author’s journey with her husband’s dementia, it also describes the ever-changing dynamics of their relationship, with patience, clarity, and highly descriptive dialogue.

TERMINAL IMPULSES by Michael McDonald-Low Stephanie Courtland has two very secret, very dangerous girlfriends who haunt her life with extreme compulsions and mysterious blackouts. She doesn’t question what she does during these periods, but she dreams of blood on her hands and she’s worried. How can she trust the person in the mirror when the eyes looking back aren’t her own? She’ll need to decide quickly - they’re all about to be caught up in a series of gruesome, revengeful murders.

Spring Reading Magazine

Terminal Impulses is a solid 5 stars. This psychological suspense thriller by a new author had me engrossed from the very beginning - I kept making my own guesses and predictions about what would happen next - it was so fun, even when they turned out to be so wrong! The detailed descriptions of the characters and scenes really puts you there in the book and feeling connected with the action and the unexpected drama that takes place. There’s an edge to Terminal Impulses that makes it highly entertaining . . . I couldn’t put it down.

Dealing With Demons by Lady Tracilyn George To fully understand depression, you must listen intently and attentively to those of us afflicted. It is important for anyone with mental illness to be treated with kindness, respect and dignity, not with stigma, bias and scorn for we are fighting a battle beyond one’s vision and comprehension. Just because we don’t look sick, it doesn’t mean we aren’t. The purpose of this book is to look at mental illness from the inside out from one survivor’s point of view.

The way in which the author’s insight was put into words was wonderful. Often we know what/how we feel but words fail us. Now, I have the words! My sincere gratitude, Captain Dawn Ottman (A veteran with PTSD which results in depression at times)

Just Be: Transform Your Life and Live as Infinity by Suresh Ramaswamy

“Just Be is the ultimate manual for life—a classic in the vein of Eckhart Tolle. Discover the ‘art of being’ and be uplifted and awakened by light. Suresh Ramaswamy is a transformational master gently guiding us back to our infinite essence. Just Be is a must-read for anyone dedicated to personal growth!” - Marci Shimoff, Transformational Leader #1 NY Times bestselling author of Happy for No Reason

Spring Reading Magazine

Just Be’s essential message is simple. Just be who you are. Who you are is pure essence. Suresh Ramaswamy has created this indispensable resource charged with high vibrations of light, designed to take you to your highest potential. You will discover what life is truly about, experience a deeper reality rooted in beingness, and live from that reality. Uplifting and overflowing with beautiful jewels of wisdom, Just Be will transform you, leading you to a life pulsating with love, peace, and joy.

The Outcasts by Peter Hutton The Outcasts is an easy to read Fantasy novel, with magic, a looming conflict, love and an element of mystery. Follow the stories of Dorren, an Outcast with a nasty habit of breaking the rules, even those of his own people, and Sileena, the daughter of a noble. Many are wary of her golden eyes and the dangers they may possess. It is a fast paced story that is perfect for any reader who is a fan of the fantasy genre.

Amazon customer K. Moore - An impressive first novel. A great read and one I genuinely couldn’t put down. A vivid world and a engagingly good story. It’s written in an easy reading way so it’s impossible not to get absorbed. I’m hoping for more from Dorren & Sileena.

In the Shadow of War: Spies, Love & the Lusitania By Colleen Adair Fliedner In 1915 while the WW1 raged on, Americans, and especially New Yorkers, faced their own “silent war” at home. Disgruntled with America’s so-called promise of neutrality and overt trade deals with England and France, the Germans set up a spy ring headquartered in Manhattan. Bombs, chemical warfare, spy networks, the bombing of the U.S. Capitol, a 500 million dollar loan to the U.K and France, the sinking of the RMS Lusitania, and the story of unwavering love are all woven into the complex plot.

Spring Reading Magazine

From all of my high-school and college history classes, I knew about the sinking of the Lusitania, but when I read In the Shadow of War, I learned the story behind the story. I had no idea there were German spies in the U. S. and was unaware of all the political intrigue that went on behind the scenes regarding the beginnings of the U..S.’s involvement in World War I. Colleen Fliedner has done a masterful job at exposing all these details and the truth behind the sinking of the Lusitania. This is a must-read!

Free Mexican Air Force will be Flying Tonight by Terry Canipe Shot at, busted, jailed in a prison in Acapulco only to escape - it reads like a movie but it was my life as a marijuana smuggler. I was never the type to be a ‘normal citizen’ and became hooked on a life of danger and adventure, with money to be made. A forty year career in the smuggling business means a lot of stories to tell, ones to entertain you, amaze you, scare you, and keep you on the edge of your seat. To survive, and even thrive in such an environment for so many years takes planning, organisation and luck. Read on, to see how I did it and stayed alive.

“This book is highly addictive to read and is written simply. I read it within 24 hours after getting my hands on the book. It is a first-person recount on his experiences as a Marijuana Smuggler and can be compared to the book ‘American Kingpin”. This book will keep you hook to understand the life of a drug smuggler like no other. Highly recommended! “ - Goodreads reviewer

Faerey Normal (A Modern Teen Fae Book 1) by Brett Hicks

I like how this take standard high school stuff and throw it to the wind mixing in magic, political plots, gods and higher powers. I can not wait to see if this book turn into a series for this writer. This book had a very interesting take on faeries, vampires and werewolves and the powers they had. I hope there’s a book 2 and we finally find out who Amy’s mom is, and what Amy really is. And hopefully Amy’s new friends are in it too. (Casey and Naomi) and thank goodness there wasn’t a lot of angst.

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Amy wakes up on her fifteenth birthday to discover she and her father are Moch Sidhe, a noble form of fae. She is promptly enrolled into the Cambridge Boarding School with many other youths of her kind. She will soon realize that everything is a lie and she is in constant danger!

Case One ~ The Deceit (Trudy Hicks Ghost Hunter Book 1) by Lori Zaremba I hunt ghosts. Not to prove they exist -but to figure out why they’re still here. My first case leads me to a mansion in the Chicago, the home of a socialite who lived there until she fell to her death in 1927. Upon arriving, I’m forced to work alongside a man whose sole purpose is to debunk paranormal activity. Even worse, He’s gorgeous, and the more we work together, I realize I might be falling for him. Together we’re delving deeper into the spiritual world. The more secrets we uncover, the more pissed off these ghosts become. I start to realize, we might be in way over our heads.

This book = 5 stars. It has the perfect amount of crime, mystery, and a supernatural twist to keep you turning the pages in anticipation of what happens next! Trudy Hicks has a spunky and fun personality that makes you fall in love with her. I can’t wait for case two! 13

The Persistence of Memory Book 1: Déjà Vu by Karen Janowsky Daniel, a genetically enhanced war hero and time traveler, is out of touch and in the wrong century. Nina, a librarian, has encyclopedic knowledge of ancient history, but amnesia about her own past. They do not remember one another, but their pasts catch up with them when they become targets of evil, dangerous creatures. Superpowers won’t be enough to stop them. Humanity’s survival depends upon them cracking an ancient, cryptic myth, and remembering that long time ago, they met and fell in love.

“Janowsky has the ability to create a gripping narrative which is rich in details and shines with romantic intrigue.” - Prairies Book Review

Spring Reading Magazine

Love Songs Standards Boxed Set by Cynthia Roberts

If you love Contemporary Romances with relatable, flawed characters who are sometimes wounded or broken and eventually find that kind of love we all dream of, you’ll love this series titled after some of the greatest love songs of all times.

Omg Unchained Melody is the very first book the this series and let me say that you will not be disappointed! The main character Pamela has what every girl dreams of: the job, amazing house and gorgeous car. However she doesn’t have love until she meets Gavin. Unchained Melody brings you romance and heartache but most of all love. This book will have you sitting on the edge of your seat until you finish the last page. I don’t want to give anything away but I will tell you this: the book is Definitely a MUST read!!!! You will not be disappointed!!!

Fairfield Corners from LA Remenicky!

From Book 1: Some secrets are too dangerous to keep. After ten years in the big city, Cassie Holt is back in Fairﬁeld Corners. She may look like the same girl who left home a decade before but she’s hiding a dark truth from everyone. When her life is threatened by the demons of her past, her best friend—who happens to be the local sheriff—offers his help.

Spring Reading Magazine

Love stories with a TWIST of paranormal Each is a suspense filled standalone ebook, pb, AUDIO & FREE on KU!

Sons of the Sphinx by Cheryl Carpinello When Rosa agrees to help King Tut’s ghost find his lost queen Hesena & clear his family’s name, she doesn’t count on falling for him. And though she carries part of that queen’s soul inside hers, she isn’t prepared for the danger that awaits her in that ancient land. She & Tut must also outwit an evil pharaoh determined to stop them. Only then does she realize that failure means she could die over 3300 years from home!

“First off, I will openly admit that I am a historian with an avid interest in the field of ancient history. The author has done a marvelous job of negotiating the disputed points of this era and woven them into a seamless time travel historical adventure for middle grade, teen readers and adults...” - Barbara Mojica

Spring Reading Magazine

Sober and Pissed Off by Jane Zarse

Sober and Pissed Off is a book for recovering alcoholics who are struggling with emotional wellbeing. There is no known cure for alcoholism, and the only proven treatment is spirituality. Jane Zarse is a recovering alcoholic who will never be cured. What she really has is a daily reprieve, contingent on the maintenance of her spiritual condition. When Zarse got tangled up emotionally, her spiritual condition suffered greatly. When a recovering alcoholic loses serenity, sobriety is usually next. Zarse is grateful that she didn’t return to drinking, but if she stayed as miserable as she had become, there’s no telling what could have happened.

An excellent account of dealing with anger and insecurity in sobriety. I really enjoyed it and believe it can help a lot of people dealing with these issues.

Inn the Dog House by Kâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Anne Meinel

Much of the book deals with getting the business started, and that was a lot of fun to read. The doggy day care has so many great things for dogs, and being a dog lover, I had a great time reading it. I hated the part about Carolyn, and really wonder about Liamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s family. I love the main characters, but I kind of wish there was more focused on the interactions between Charlie and Reagan. I put this one up with Lawyered, Doctored, and Small Town Angel.

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Life has gone to the dogs for Charlie Abella. Years of showing champion Border Collies has left her feeling burned out. Moving on with her life, she heads to college and then takes on the world of business. She is blessed to find a job working in sales for the pet industry where her knowledge and skills will help her move quickly up the corporate ladder and away from the small town of Searsport, Maine where she grew up. When she loses a beloved relative, Charlie returns to Searsport for the funeral, believing now, she can finally cut all ties to her hometown.

Revenge by Ester Lopez A reformed criminal struggles with a hidden power and the truth about the murdered brother of the revenge-seeking woman he loves.

The promised sequel. The story is more suspenseful than even the first book. First, I loved the cover! Second, the adventure continues. Another page turner. I burned the midnight oil on this book. Amazing, the twists and turns in the story. I found myself wanting to jump ahead to see what happens. It was worth waiting for the end. This book would make a great movie. What do you think?

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The Rose Slayer A Short Story by Stephen Bentley

Six murders. Two detectives. More than four million LA residents. “That’s a hell of a lot of suspects,” Bill Pawson said. His partner, Sean Wells shrugged. Pawson and Wells, Detectives First Class of LAPD Robbery Homicide Squad, had been working this homicide case for the past three years. It was cases rather than a case. It was clear to them, their Captain, the Chief of Detectives, the media, and the public there was a serial killer at large in Los Angeles. What wasn’t clear was the identity of the killer. The cops had no clue as to who it was or why. The modus operandi told them it was the work of one person: all middleaged female victims; all single or divorced, lived alone, only had a cat or cats as a pet, no dogs, and no kids. All the victims’ homes’ rear windows jimmied, night-time entry believed to be between three to four in the early hours; cause of death identical in all cases: a .22 slug in the brain fired at not more than two-feet away, using a pillow to muffle the sound. A rose left on or next to the victimes’ bodies, a single red rose. The media called the perp, ‘The Rose Slayer.’ The crime scenes yielded no clues. No prints, no fibres, no DNA. No

witnesses. Nothing. Nada. Before you ask: no, have you any idea how many florists there are in and around LA? Not to mention rose growers. Casts were taken of the jimmie marks on the window frames and preserved in the evidence store. They were as useful as an Eskimo’s refrigerator. Without the bar used to force entry there was nothing for the CSI lab to compare. Sure, there were the slugs recovered during the autopsies. They were all from the same weapon but where was that gun? Detective work is easy once you have the perp’s identity, search his place, find the bar and gun. He can lawyer up as much as he wants. The DA will have a field day in court. Juries love CSI.

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“Hey Sean!” Pawson shouted, “wanna beer or three before we knock it off for the weekend?” The robbery homicide squad room was full of detectives’ noisy banter about the Lakers. Wells called back over the hubbub, “Yeah, sure thing. Just give me two minutes, will ya?” Pawson impatient and sighing, pulled his Glock .45 and holster from a desk drawer, secured them to his waist belt and threw his jacket over one shoulder ready to leave. Moving his shield clipped to his shirt breast pocket, to his belt, he muttered under his breath. His partner had taken a new incoming call. Wells listened while holding his free hand ramrod in the air. Pawson recognized that was a signal to wait. Over the next thirty seconds, they both realized the weekend was cancelled. “Wait up,” Pawson heard Wells say as he listened to one side of the conversation. “.22, okay, yeah could be.” “Point blank in the head. Pillow?” “Yeah sounds like our perp. Waddya mean, different?” “Okay, be there ASAP. Depends on the freeway trafﬁc.” Wells grabbed his gun, holstered it, and threw on his jacket. “What’s with the ‘different’?” Pawson said. “He wouldn’t say. Just said, ‘you can see for yourself.’” ***

“Knock it off, Jim.” Pawson said. “Please yourself,” Cowie snapped, “but let me tell ya this - when I saw the rose, I knew exactly who had murdered Mrs. O’Connell.” “What! Who?” Wells said and immediately regretted it. “The Rose Slayer, is who.” Cowie guffawed. “Get lost,” Wells said. “Charming.” Ignoring the uniform cop, the detectives walked through to the bedroom. They had witnessed a similar crime scene on six previous occasions. The ME spoke, “Thought it’d be you two. You got a seventh vic now but there’s a difference.”

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An Echo Park side street was the location of the single-storey home of Mary O’ Connell, a divorced woman aged forty-ﬁve years. The crime scene tape in place when Detectives Pawson and Wells rang the front door bell. A twenty-two-year uniformed veteran, Jim Cowie, opened the door. “Holy Moly, what brings Laurel and Hardy out here? Not seen you two for years.”

Mike Nakamura, the ME, pointed at the corpse on the bed, “Looks like a .22 entry wound here. No exit as usual. I’ll dig it out for comparison later. And, there’s the pillow used to mufﬂe the noise.” Pawson moved over to the other side of the bed taking in her face and front of her body. “Holy crap!” Pawson said, “she has no ﬁngers.” “That’s what’s different. I was about to tell you,” Nakamura said, “if you look at her mouth, the perp cut them off and stuffed them down her throat.” “Sicko!” Wells said. “Time of death, detectives, was about three this morning. Three a.m.” The phone on the bedside table rang. Wells picked up on the second ring. “Hello. Who’s this?” “Uh huh. Uh huh. I see. Okay. Thanks,” he said before hanging up. “Her boss. He called it in when she didn’t show for work this morning. Cowie caught the despatch and found the back window forced.” Wells said. He added, “the thing is, her boss asked us to check if her laptop is 23

on the kitchen table.” “What for?” Pawson asked. “He says there’s a load of commercially sensitive info on it.” “Cowie!” Pawson yelled. “Go check the kitchen. Find me a laptop and bring it here. Put some gloves on though, won’tcha?” There was no laptop in the kitchen or anywhere else. *** Captain Charlie Hills called a case conference for ﬁrst thing Monday morning at the Robbery Homicide Squad’s downtown HQ ofﬁce. “Any of these other vics have laptops missing?” Hills said. “No way of knowing. We can’t trace family or friends for any of them. Co-workers either said ‘yes, they had one, but, no, they hadn’t got a clue if it was missing or sorry, don’t know.’” Pawson said.

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Hills said, “I’m sure this is the key to cracking this case wide open. Think. Let’s assume they all had something in common. Something that would be revealed in emails or on a website, even Facebook.” “We don’t have the smartphones, laptops or any devices of these vics.” Wells said. “No, but we have their details. Let’s get on to the service providers – the internet and telephone companies, and email providers. Check with them. I’ll get the DA on to it now. We’ll need subpoenas.” *** Captain Hills pulled some strings in arranging for twenty academy recruits to scour through voluminous records provided under subpoena. It took them five days working fifteen hours every day to make the breakthrough. He wrote down the essential piece of information, before summoning Pawson and Wells to his office. “Here it is,” he said as he waved a sheet of paper in the air, “GreatReads. com!” Pawson and Wells looked at each other, baffled. “So?” They said in unison. “So, you go get a warrant right now. We got the “Rose Slayer.” 24

***

A man, about thirty-five years’ old, swivelled on an office chair to face them. His hands left the computer keyboard as he raised them in surrender. “Don’t shoot,” Tommy Queen said. “Where’s the piece?” Wells said. “There. In the second drawer,” Queen said pointing at his desk drawer. As Wells gave him his Miranda rights, Pawson pointed at the computer screen and asked, “What’s that?” “My latest novel.” “You’re a writer?” “Yes.” “On Greatreads?” Wells asked. “No that’s just a place for authors and readers to hang. Readers leave reviews there.” “Readers like Mary O’ Connell?” “Yup.” “So, tell me, Tommy. Why did you kill her?” Pawson said. “I’m sure you’ll find out anyways. She trashed one of my books. Gave it a one-star review.” “Why chop off her fingers?” Wells said. “She refused to apologize.” “For what?” “For writing such lies about my book.” “Are you saying all the others apologized before you shot them dead?” “I am. They died happy, detective. Believe me. I saw them smile after I asked them to say sorry.” “Sonofabitch,” Wells said.

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The front door of the apartment crashed inwards. Detectives Pawson and Wells shouted in unison, “Police! Robbery Homicide LAPD!” Fanning out, Glocks drawn, they both entered the ﬁrst room off the small hall. The door was open.

“Enough, Sean, enough. Tommy Queen. I’m arresting you for the ﬁrstdegree homicide of Mary O’Connell and six other of your victims. Do you understand?” “Yes. I do. I am a good writer and now I’ll be famous. They were all liars, I hope you know that.” As Wells snapped the handcuffs on Queen’s wrists, he noticed a red rose in a vase on the writer’s desk. “Who’s that for?” “Number thirty. There were way more than seven bad reviews. Detectives, you need to check my frequent ﬂyer points.”

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Stephen Bentley is a former police Detective Sergeant and barrister (trial attorney) from the UK. He is now an indie author, freelance writer, and HuffPost UK contributor on undercover policing. His memoir ‘Undercover: Operation Julie - The Inside Story’ is a frank account of his undercover detective experiences during Operation Julie - an elite group of detectives who successfully investigated one of the world’s largest drugs rings. Stephen also writes fiction including the Steve Regan Undercover Cop series and a forthcoming Detective Matt Deal thriller. When he isn’t writing, Stephen follows the (mis)fortunes of Liverpool Football Club from afar and relaxes on the beaches of the Philippines with his family where he now lives. Find out more about him on his website: http://author.to/StephenBentley

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Drama in the Theatre Chris Calder

This is a true story. I know it’s true because it happened to me not long ago, in France where I was living happily at the time. Let me share with you the experience I had immediately following an operation. It was the first of two which I needed to rid me of something nasty in one of my internal organs. The procedure was an endoscopy, so the surgeon used an endoscope, the tube thingy with some nifty tools on the end, which is inserted without the need to cut you open. The doctor was very good and he remembered my anxious request to please leave all the external bits alone. I was admitted to the hospital on a Wednesday evening and the op was scheduled for the following morning. OK, I thought, the “nil by mouth” wouldn’t be for too long, then. The following morning, I was prepped and ready by nine o’clock and told to stay put in bed. A bit later I was told there were delays; I might have to wait. OK, no problem. So, I waited, and waited. It was to be half past one in the afternoon when I was finally taken down, tummy rumbling like distant thunder, just when I had begun to wonder if I might make medical history as the first person ever to suffer bed sores whilst waiting for an operation.

Numb from the waist down, I watched on a monitor screen the whole procedure as it happened. Fascinating. All done, the anaesthetist left, and the two theatre nurses started to move me from the table onto a bed, as they do. Routine stuff, I imagine. At that point I was still hooked up to several plastic tubes connected to various parts of my body. The bed was drawn alongside; it was slightly lower than the operating table. One nurse took hold of my feet, the other got her arms under my armpits and with one extended hand, started to fold down the safety rail on the side of the bed. It stuck. So, she tried again, then (with me in mid-air) watched in horror as the bed slowly drifted away on its castors.

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Panic! The nurse yelled. The surgeon sprinted around and took over from her, supporting my front end. Meanwhile my recumbent horizontal form very slowly started to dip in the middle, becoming U-shaped, drawing forward the little nurse hanging onto my ankles. (Now I swear to you that I am not making this up). Thereupon the first nurse, also a small person, with commendable presence of mind, immediately fell to her knees and on hands and knees, positioned herself strategically directly under my rear end. Voila! Position stabilised. On the count of “Un, Deux, Trois”, everyone heaved my inert form upwards. For me it was the most unnerving feeling, trying my best to help by “hoicking” myself, to find that I simply could not get my body to move. I could not hoick. Dead from the waist down, literally a dead weight! With me finally bundled unceremoniously onto the bed, everyone relaxed. The surgeon, fortunately for me a fit young man, was ashen. “Sorry”, he apologised, “the bed broke.” Next morning propped up in bed I tucked into my breakfast croissant and a bowl of coffee, my first hot drink for two days. It felt like the best coffee I had ever drunk. Then for some inexplicable reason I sneezed a mighty AAAA-TTISSHH--OOOO..........and my (hitherto) permanent implant of two front teeth flew out and disappeared into the rucked bedclothes! Perhaps more a French farce than a drama, then. 28

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Chris Calder was born in India at the end of the Raj and moved to England in the nineteen-fifties. After a career as a design engineer he moved to France. Now back in England, he is a full-time novelist, currently working on a story that taps into his own life experience of his early years in India. Chris writes light thrillers. Look out for innovative plots, credible dialogue and pacey story-telling in Calder novels. And a dash of humour. These are trade-mark features, the continuous improvement of which he attributes to invaluable input from readers. He says that he tries never to lose sight of the fact that readers of fiction expect to be diverted and entertained. He loves feedback and always responds to emails from readers, believing passionately that taking on board what readers want is the best way to improve what he does. Find out more about him here: https://www.chriscalder.com

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The AD Man Mary Ann Cherry

I gulped half of my skinny latte, bolstering my courage with caffeine, then hit the power button on the computer and waited, heart pounding. It fired up in what seemed like enough time to read War and Peace. The screen appeared, and I clicked on the calendar app. Thursday the 5th. God. The window washer was listed on the schedule. I wondered if the washerwoman would come with him. Salty droplets of apprehension trickled down the side of my face. I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand and looked around the office. The designer space was the perfect statement of moneyed sophistication. Stark white furniture was offset by cushions covered in deep aquamarine, the sea of blue flowing around the room to give the client the feel of waves bathing a Maui beach. Today, the effect was as chilling as glacial ice. I shivered. Then I picked up one of the luxurious throw pillows, crushing it to my chest for warmth. Maybe today she wouldn’t come. There had been only an insubstantial shimmer of her last week. Perhaps—perhaps she was imaginary. Sure. I was just stressed. Doc warned me I couldn’t expect to keep up such a pace without the overtime taking its toll. I’d accepted too many advertising clients the past year. Too many with

mediocre products but marketing expectations set as high as Mt. Everest.

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Did I hear a squeak? I tossed the pillow down, ran to the left window of my corner office, and shoved the white drape open. Nothing. Across the square my own advertising flashed slowly onto the side of the opposite skyscraper—first the Diamond Jeweler’s, then Barnes and Noble’s blurb about the new Richard Earl Rice novel—then the ad-spot announcing the upcoming grand opening of Mangini’s new restaurant, a snobby palace where even I could barely afford to dine with the fussiest potential clients. I swiveled and pushed open the drapes on the other window. Dammit! A tangle of pulleys and ropes was attached to a scaffolding, which was being lowered. I cursed like the Irishman I was. Not the professional magic man of advertising I portrayed. No, not him, but the O’Shaunessy I was deep down—the one who liked—even reveled in—a bloody fistfight in a filthy alley. Today, even my deeply buried ancestors trembled at the ratcheting, rumbling sound of the mechanism raising the platform. He would appear any second now. The window washer. That damn O’Brien. A form materialized against the window and I leaped back. Not O’Brien. The scaffolding had not yet reappeared. It was the woman. Flowing grey fabric swirled around the lithe female form, a figure that floated fifteen floors above East 42nd street. Wild tendrils of white-blond hair drifted around her face. I knew what she was. She was a keener. A banshee. Why not? Werewolves in London. Vampires in Manhattan. And now visible placement diversification—a damn banshee here in the middle of New York City. It was bitchin’. A campaign like none I had ever designed. I stared like a transfixed teen at a video game. At first, her face seemed ethereal and full of beauty, so beautiful her appearance stabbed into my eyes like a retinal migraine. She twirled in a full circle and a washtub appeared at her feet. In her hands she held a frilled white shirt and a long swathe of bloody bandages. She dipped them slowly up and down in the tub. Dip. Swirl. Dip Swirl. As the banshees of myth washed the chain mail and bloody armor of dead combatants, she pulled the white cloth through the murky water. The water transformed to the deepest of crimson.

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Then, the tub and washing disappeared. Her features melted into distortion and the shiver of sound began. Low at ﬁrst, it grew with the momentum of fury as her head tilted backward. The pitch rose to a screech that splintered like ice. It was perfect. If Satan himself could produce a cutting-edge platform to market pure evil, this was it. As frightened as I was, I couldn’t help but picture how effectively the scene would play out on a big screen. But then, the banshee’s scream metamorphosed to sobbing and I covered my ears. It wasn’t just a slight glimpse of death. Today, it was the whole enchilada. Today, someone was going to die.

My grandfather had told tales of the banshees. He claimed they wailed only before the death of members from certain important families. Even though I was billed as the King of Marketing, our family was not of royal heritage. So far as I knew, I came from honest, but sturdy, peasant stock, a family who slaughtered hogs for a living. Now, we produced cutting edge product marketing. Yet . . . the banshees had filled grandfather’s home with keening the night grandmother died in bed last year, right in Manhattan. And again when my sister Marie slipped away from cancer in France. A continent away. But they knew. The banshees always knew. I listened as the apparition’s shrieks and crying diminished in resonance, then graduated to a clacking sound. Above the noise, I heard a separate tapping and scraping at the window and saw a spindly man in a red jumpsuit standing unconcerned on the scaffold, working on the large windowpane. The Irishman. O’Brien pulled downward on the glass with a squeegee. The sound was the unnerving fingernail on a blackboard. He tapped the tool again against a rail of the scaffold, flicking excess water from the blade, and then waved at me through the window. I lifted my hand in resignation.

The squeegee squealed again. He does it to annoy me, I thought. When my most important clients came for an appointment, he always showed up to wash the windows. No matter how I rearranged their appointments, he seemed to know. The hideous squeals of his squeegee and the distracting sight of the figure suspended outside the window killed any chance of selling a client on an ad campaign, a logo, or new ideas for packaging. Near O’Brien’s scrawny form drifted the banshee. Her mouth was agape and she writhed, arms flailing, tendrils of smoke colored fabric swirling and shifting about her. Cold seeped into the room from outside the window pane. O’Brien sprayed the glass with cleaning solution, oblivious. He reached above his head and drew the squeegee down to knee level, teetering precariously on his high perch. I turned abruptly and stepped through the door of my office into the break room. Even in the break room, I heard the drawn out pig squeal of the squeegee. I wanted to slaughter it as my ancestors would have done.

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I seethed inside. His fault, I thought. She was wailing here only because O’Brien was here cleaning my windows. His fault. His fault. That freakish Irishman with no fear of heights. It was unnatural. Every washday, he teetered on the very edge of the scaffolding. Was today the day he fell?

I stepped to the window and yanked the cord on the mini-blinds to shut out the scene. They pulled from the fitting and crashed to the floor. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the wraith flit by the window, then return and hover, her mouth a jagged black hole. Her shrill wail started again. It was so much worse than O’Brien’s squeegee. She ramped up until I staggered. I had to get O’Brien’ to go away. If he went, so would she. The window washer was working on the third window. We rarely opened it because of the smog, and because there was no screen. “You have to go,” I yelled. “Go away.” There was no response. I crossed to the window and pulled open the lower sash. “Come back another time, O’Brien,” I shouted, hanging halfway out the window. “My nerves are shot. Get the hell out of here.” He looked blankly at me and cocked his head, reaching up to remove earbuds. The banshee appeared in front of the Irishman’s gangly form, 33

the red of his uniform mingling with the transparent sooty grey. A vortex of cold twisted lazily about her. Suddenly, she spun toward my face. I threw my arm up to ward her off. My hand reached through the shocking cold of the banshee and hit O’Brien square on the chest. He let out a yelp, teetered and grabbed the rope of his scaffold, his eyes wild. I reached further out of window opening, grabbing at his uniform, but he’d already slipped beyond my grasp and was losing his tenuous perch. My ﬁngers clenched tightly, one hand freezing onto the window ledge and one on the closest rope, near the pulley. I lifted my leg through the opening and put one foot gently onto the scaffold. I shut my eyes against the view of the trafﬁc below—the matchbox cars, the ant sized buses. O’Brien’s grip shifted on the rope. The pulley slipped. I felt the scaffold disappear from beneath my foot, and as I yanked my foot back to the window ledge, O’Brien spilled like rainwater from a bucket toward the dirty streets of New York.

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The damn Irishman. I clung to the ledge, remembering the feel of O’Brien’s chest under my hand. Below me on the pavement, bystanders pointed up at me. They seemed to be chanting. A faint cry of “murderer” ﬁltered up to me.

I was a good ad man. But there wasn’t a copywriter alive good enough to put a positive spin on this one. And I was cold. I straightened my body, trembling with the chill as I stood almost on tiptoe with my back against the building. The wraith reached her hand forward and thrust it into me, her ﬁngers glacial. Her expression was sad, but somehow expectant. Waiting. I put my arms up and stretched wide. Then I stepped from the ledge. Mary Ann Cherry is a professional artist who writes the Jessie O’Bourne art mystery series in her elusive free time. Like her main character, she paints primarily western and wildlife subject matter, travels to art shows, and teaches workshops. Raised in rural Montana, she now lives in Idaho with her husband and several spoiled cats. Find out more about her here: https://www.amazon.com/Mary-Ann-Cherry/e/ B01HZ0FOUS

Few things reveal our character like our relationship with animals. It goes beyond kindness to them if we’re so inclined, though that’s highly signiﬁcant. It extends to an awareness of how much the creatures we encounter teach us about life in general and ourselves.

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Sinbad’s Sofa Dirk B. Sayers

*** If you’ve ever wintered in the heartland, you know the kind of blizzard I mean—gale-driven snow that burns like tattooing needles. I pumped gas for three cars, that night, each appearing suddenly from the formless whiteness like an apparition. Drivers, huddling behind the wheel while I filled their tank, paid wordlessly and drove off, swallowed whole by the blinding storm. Just after midnight, a long-haired black cat appeared, eyes glittering in the station lights as he paced outside the glass entry door. I don’t remember if I sensed him subconsciously and looked, or saw him first and noticed he was yowling, his voice stolen by the pitiless wind. I let him in. He ate a bit of my hours-old burger, washing it down with water from a paper cup. All the while, his watchful eyes never left me. Immediate needs met, he went exploring. It didn’t take him long to find the sofa, situated between the rusting soda cooler and the compressor powering the service bay lift. The sofa wasn’t much to look at, but it made the best of the inadequate overhead heater.

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Smelling of gasoline, engine oil and over brewed coffee, the sofa was clothed in an ever-changing collage of stains the origins of which it was best not to contemplate. The cat didn’t mind. He curled up with every intention of going to sleep—on my sofa. Would the rag bin work, I wondered? It certainly smelled better. But would he let me pick him up? He did. When I set him down in the rag bin, he eyed me with reproachful dignity before going to work pawing at the rags. After a couple trial circles, he settled into the resulting indentation, and I congratulated myself on my successful bait and switch. Less than an hour later, I settled in for a nap of my own, serenaded by the howling wind. I slept lightly, back then. So, when the cat’s weight hit my chest, it startled me to full consciousness. He shifted around for a moment or two, eventually ﬁnding comfort with his nose less than four inches from mine. I remember wondering if he’d had his shots, as he pawed my nose gently, then nose-butted me. After less than a minute of stroking him behind the ears, his purrs competed with the drone of the soda cooler behind

my head. My new companion moved only once that night, momentarily spooked by the compressor kicking in to repressurize the service lift.

By the time the Chinooks blew, and the snow melted, Sinbad and I took each other’s companionship for granted. Warmer weather had him coming and going at will, but never missing his evening snack. When I studied, he treated my textbooks as his own. His favorites seemed to be Hansen’s History of Art and Box and Jenkins’ Statistics and Forecasting.

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The next morning, Jerry ratiﬁed the cat’s new status as station mascot dubbing him Sinbad. Jerry’s unstated plan seemed to be to underfeed him, hoping he would keep the rodents in check. I doubt he realized I was feeding Sinbad each night when I arrived for my shift. In less than a month, Sinbad had developed a fondness for venison jerky and the thick vanilla shakes from the truck stop across the road. He spent part of every night parked in the middle of my chest, purring and kneading me with his paws—occasionally with enough energy to keep me awake. And so, it went through the long plains winter.

Sinbad was not a cat to be ignored. Somewhere along the way, he had perfected the nose butt, for use when subtler attention-getting techniques failed. By May, he ruled the back room and the sofa with the regal hegemony only cats can pull off. One night when I came in for my shift, Sinbad was nowhere to be found. I asked Jerry about him the next morning, but he was as mystiﬁed as me. A week came and went, but still no Sinbad. He’s a cat, I reminded myself each time I worried about him. Cat do this. He was never yours, so get over it. Sinbad had wandered in one night seeking refuge. I had provided it, along with a comfortable sofa. Neither the sofa nor Sinbad was mine. He had moved on when it suited him, just as I would move on when I completed the requirements for my degree. And when I moved on, my sofa would become someone else’s. That’s how it is, I told myself. Still, I worried. Had he been snatched by Coyotes, mauled by a dog or hit by a truck? Or had he just gone home, now that the snow had melted? 37

Gradually, the distractions of my last year of college gave me other things to think about, driving Sinbad from my thoughts—until Jerry replaced the sofa in the back room. He was as aware as I that the old sofa was years past its best. So, when he bought a new sofa for his den at home, he brought the old one out to the station. With Midwest pragmatism, he loaded the stain-soaked sofa from the back room into the pick-up and hauled it to the dump. In his mind, he was merely replacing an old thing with a newer, more comfortable thing. But I associated the old sofa with Sinbad, who had who had not simply curled up with me on it but had also curled up in my heart. I missed my chance companion and, by association, the sofa we’d shared. Somehow, the new couch was never as comfortable.

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It’s been more than twenty years since Sinbad wandered into and out of my life with the effortless grace of cats everywhere. I have been through several sofas of my own since then, all nicer and less aromatic than the one in the back room of Jerry’s Standard station. I have also come to know countless men and women, over those years. Most, like Sinbad, have wandered into and out of my life.

Many etched memories into my story, then moved on, often with little or no explanation. I have come to accept these unexplained disappearances. But some people—and some critters—never truly leave. They hang around, like Sinbad, long after they’re gone. Remembering always leaves me with a bittersweet twist in my gut—part regret, part reluctant acceptance, but mostly deep, enduring love. As the years have piled up behind me, Sinbad, along with the people and the many creatures I’ve known, have become a kind of internal clock by which I measure my life and how much of it I have left. Occasionally, on nights when sleep eludes me, I feel Sinbad rubbing against my thoughts. When he does, I tell myself his disappearance was just him listening to the mysterious inner wisdom that guided him to me and shelter on that bitter winter night—just as it drove him to move on when it was time.

Dirk Sayers is the author of three books, including West of Tomorrow, Best Case Scenario, and Through the Windshield, Drive-by Lives, available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. Due out in late 2019 is Tier Zero, Volume I of the Knolan Cycle, a thought-provoking tale of first contact between the Earth and the Knolan Concordant. Subscribe to Dirkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Updates at dirksayers.com.

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But mostly when I think of him, I hope that at some level he remembered the sofa we sharedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and that it was a place of deep content for him, as it was for me that winter so long ago.

AMAZON STORE 39

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Excerpt from Chapter 21: Chiaroscuro I certainly didn’t expect Nina to pass up an occasion such as the funeral of a pop idol not to dress up, and she didn’t disappoint. Gut wrenching grief her benchmark, the look of the day was Goth. Nothing is more funereal than Goth, and she went all out. Glossy black lips grimaced under thick jarring rings of black mascara painted around eyelids blackened with photon absorbing kohl dust, while her hair, dyed jet-black, was tinged purple at the fringes, and topped off with a black pillbox hat and bird cage veil. In accoutrement to her face, she wore a full length black dress that appeared as though it had been poured over her, the slinky skin tight bodice exploded into skirt and ruffles that looked like a splash of India ink flash-frozen before it hit the floor. Not a scrap of flesh was visible on neck or arms and her black gloves dovetailed so imperceptibly with the sleeves of the dress that they must have been original to the ensemble. Her pale cheeks shone through the black veil like the faint glow of a lone lamp from a distant mountain cabin. There was a promising strand of shimmering blond leaking down one side of her head, but under the aura of Goth it seemed less to signify a ray of hope, than a lit fuse.

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Dressing Stone by Scott Feero

The chic malaise portrayed by Nina’s getup rendered it incomprehensible how the actual loss of a loved one heaped on top of all that dressy despondency could be endured, yet the effort alone betrayed real staying power. I beheld the vision of mournful loveliness and declared, “You’ve done it again.” Stepping back to drink it all in, I found myself stumbling toward her, drawn by the scent of lilies. Taking slow sips, I murmured in her ear, “Nina, you’re an unabridged work of art. Nonpareil.” 41

She straight-armed me, “Let’s have a look at you.” I wore one of her father’s old bespoke suits, pre-bloatus as Nina put it. She adjusted my collar, declared me presentable, and I followed the grieving girl to the elevator. Stepping off on the second floor she lead me through a foyer, which had escaped my notice earlier this morning. With the report of the massive mahogany door closing behind us, I was disoriented to find myself at ground level. The confusion was resolved when I saw that the house was built into an embankment, and that the gallery was the main floor.

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Stepping from the portico, we followed a trellised walkway covered with ponderous violet bracts of Japanese wisteria. Turning the corner Nina gestured toward the eighty-foot madrones, and then beyond to the wind swept lake, telling me this was her favorite view from the property. Approaching the mammoth stone staircase that led down to the parking lot, I caught sight of the lavish pool and bathhouse on the far side of the garage by lakeside. Past that, at the docks, the power driven Call Option was lit up and idling its engines, while the sail driven Put Option was battened down and forlorn. Nina stopped in her tracks and stared at the boat puzzled, “I’ve never known him to miss a day of sailing on a weekend—not with winds like this. But looks like the Dadley is in the ofﬁce scheming.” Looking at me with a raised eyebrow she pointed with her chin, “Hell of a commute huh?” I shrugged my lips, “That the boat you were born on Trawler?” “I was born on the Put. The rents used to live and die just to catch a breeze.” Nina clapped her hand over her mouth, “Oh my God, he did call her that.” “He call who what…?” “Daddy called mommy—long time ago—he did call her Breeze. He always said—on the ketch anyway—she was the better helmsman.” Tears pooled in her kohl black eyes, “Bo, it can’t be me—broke them up three years ago.” “Nah, that’s all on them.” I took her hand, stroked it perfunctorily and dropped it. 42

Twin beams from a dump truck bumping across the lawn bore down on the parking lot, the headlights highlighting the afternoon fog and drizzle. My banged up Suburban stood out amid the buffed automobiles looking scruffy and unloved. The sight of the dent in the hood made me sick. Stepping up to my car, two spatulate leaves floated in the pool in the dent looking like dead fish. Nina drifted up to my side frowning, “How’d this happen…?” Shaking with rage, I popped the hood, and delivering a half dozen angry blows with the heel of my fist the dent popped with a satisfying thwank!

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Leaving her on the landing, I headed down the mammoth stone staircase installed zig zagging between house and garage. In the distance a maintenance crew with a front loader and a platoon of shovels repaired a berm on the shoreline.

Slamming the hood, I was alarmed to find Nina on the other side of the parking lot, standing next to a Ford Expedition arguing with two unsavory looking characters… I stabbed the key in the ignition, “You know them?” “Yeah I know them. Gordon was my driver, and like bodyguard for—ever since I can remember. The guy you sucker punched is his brother Eric. He used to be a Seattle cop, but now works for Gordon.” Nina sighed, “I haven’t seen Gordon since—well—since I ran away from home, and got him fired.” I mashed the heel of my hand against my forehead, “What’d they want?” “Um, well Gordon has his own security firm now, and I guess the Dadley hired him to find out what we were up to. I mean, I feel bad for Gordon, he was just doing his job. I merely wanted him to convey my fond ‘fuckyous’ to the dadster.” “Well, I felt the same way when I punched the other guy—just wanted to deliver a message. Except I thought they were PK’s boys.” “Really…?” A quizzical expression deformed her face, “You’d do that for me? Really?” She oozed into my lap smearing herself over me like paint, “You’re the only person I’ve ever known who cared enough to die for me.” 43

Watching a single tear under the veil etch its way down her cheek I said, “Let’s not get carried away.” I pushed her from my lap, “I’ll protect you, but I’m not going to die for you.” The large crease that replaced the dent in the hood glared at me like a lingering nightmare. Backing out of the parking space, I grit my teeth, “Where to…?” Nina strummed her bottom lip making a popping sound, “I have to make the rounds so—” She coughed, “So get ready to meet my friends—prolly all of ‘em.”

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21.2 See Addle

Heading north under a steady funereal rain we made our way around Lake Washington, from Madron to Broadmoor to Medina, all the way over to Mercer, everywhere we went we found gatherings of people milling about in the shock of shared grief. It seemed everyone in Seattle was holding a vigil for the late Kurt Cobain—one big wake on the lake—these were not your garden variety vigils held in the alcoholic haze of a quasi-Irish tradition. On this sad day, everyone was sharing their grief along with their private stash, whether it was their mothers’ Percoset, their fathers’ Valium, their sisters’ store of acid, or their own hard earned hoard of ecstasy. Under the ubiquitous cloud of cannabis, I’ve never seen such a wide array of stupefacients on display. At the outset I wasn’t so much bored as intrigued, and taking it all in through the eyes of a New Yorker, I felt a bit like an ethnologist undertaking ﬁeldwork in an exotic land. By New York standards the average Seattleite dressed as though clothing was their worst enemy. Given my experience with Nina I’d been expecting some sort of haute punk to be on display, but the local style was no style at all. The local couture smacked of absolute penury. It didn’t matter what sort of neighborhood we were in, fat to lean the general look was denim, ﬂannel, layered, thrift shop tatty—right out of Deliverance, hunting caps and all. There was no denying Grunge was born and bred in this Northwest coast netherworld where redneck raped Punk. Nevertheless, this stylized lack of style had its charm, and the general sorrow permeating the air was heartfelt and sincere. Amid the bereavement, a general bewilderment masked a nascent sense of betrayal, and in their desire to pay respect to their fallen idol, people brought

Despite the drizzle it was warm for April in Seattle. I knew this because everyone said it was, including the local media. Everywhere televisions and stereos were left blaring from kitchens, living rooms, decks and dens, saturating the air with the music and images of Kurt Cobain. People watched without watching, people listened without listening, people talked over it to become part of it. I was surprised by the number of people I met who claimed an intimacy with Kurt, the band, Courtney, or all of the above, but then again, no one mourns in the third person.

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out photos and albums and wrote out poster sized epigrams and other offerings that were spontaneously assembled around trees and spread out on lawns creating ad hoc sanctified sites of solemn homage. One of my favorite shrines was the votive lamps some of the mourners in Lakeridge made with Converse sneakers filled with citronella oil. After these were fired up on the lakeshore many of the kids proceeded to flambé their mackinaws and hunting caps on sticks held over the burning sneakers. The idea spread like fire itself, and I began to see these immolations at house after house as if already part of an established canon.

Like failed parents wondering where they’d gone wrong, everyone was running on survivors guilt, and a terrible need to hash out the reasons why Kurt had done it. I heard it floated more than once that selling out drove him to do it. Conspiracy theories abounded. There were those who thought his death was a corporate conspiracy. Others thought it was by government fiat. There were those who thought his dealers did him in. There were even those who suggested his band mates killed him. An awful lot of people seemed to hint at the possibility that Courtney and her crowd used hired assassins. Some thought just being married to Courtney drove him to it. I even met my share of people who rambled on as though they themselves had done him in. The only thing on which there was a consensus was that Cobain’s death was caused by a shotgun blast. At the periphery of these devotions, and of special interest to me, was macabre talk of the physical condition of Kurt’s head. Some said he blew the back of his head off, others said he blew his face off, still others said he put the gun to his neck and blew his entire head off. A splinter group insisted he blew his head to smithereens, but they seemed to be clinging to the hope that the body had been misidentified, and Kurt was still alive. 45

The main thing eating at most of these kids was that their complaints were exactly the same as Kurtâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d managed to turn this lumpen confusion into poetry, and yet for all the anguished effort, it had not saved him. Seeing the passion with which his fans mourned him was heart rending, and I felt a surge of envy wishing my art held such power over my audience. Sculpture is but a dull looming presence, at best lurking with a quiet authority, while music, like no other art form, slays its devoteesâ&#x20AC;Ś

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Scott Feero is a writer and artist who lives in Westchester County, NY. Dressing Stone is his debut novel. Scott Feero has been an award winning filmmaker, a performing musician, a sometime painter, and a writer since high school. A master carpenter, the artist chose to support himself in construction rather than follow his colleagues into academia. When not working for a living, this master plan allowed Mr Feero to follow the unfettered pursuit of his interests in art, science and the human condition by invoking the model of the Natural Philosophers, and his motto: All For the Pure Interest of It All.

“Wow. You did it. When tomorrow?” “She said she’d meet you by ten-thirty. The where? Where else but at your abandoned cabin. She knows it since it’s not far from Jeb’s cabin. She’ll be on foot.” Dinner was something of a celebration. Sue Ann broke out a bottle of champagne. He drank the lion’s share in the interest of her designated driver sobriety, or a reasonable approximation. She also hoped it would calm him enough to sleep.

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The Hunt for Billy’s Dad by Robert Solem

Maybe it was the champagne that loosened his otherwise reserved tongue, but he talked at length about Billy and about his own shop, the projects he was working on, his motorcycle and rides in the desert with Billy on the back, about plans for traveling. She’d never heard this side of him. Katie’s a lucky woman, she thought, if she’s smart enough to go back to him. A pang of regret passed through her. She herself had been on a motorcycle with a previous boyfriend, and she loved the freedom of it. Truly sad when that one didn’t work out. She’d had it with couch potatoes or worse, chronic tavern hoppers and lounge lizards.

That night, back in his hideout, Jesse got the beneﬁt of an initial fourhour sleep but woke about three. Thereafter his sleep was broken and restless until he gave it up about seven. His mind went back and forth between thoughts about Katie and about Sue Ann. His brief time with Sue Ann was rekindling feelings he’d had for her as teen lovers. Was she feeling the same? Would he now even take Katie back to Tucson if she said she wanted to return with him?

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About ten-ﬁfteen he spied her walking the edge of the road, constantly glancing around. Despite his ambivalence, he felt shy, like a teenager approaching a girl he had a crush on. She crossed the brush and stood at arm’s length in front of him. “Hi Katie,” he greeted. He stood in the open doorway not knowing what else to say. She came closer to him. Also said “Hi,” a tentativeness in her voice. Reached out and took his hand, but no hug. She looked at him searchingly, as if looking to read his face, wanting to know where he was with her. But not wanting to ask him directly. She tried for common ground. “How is Billy?” “He’s doing good.” “Glad to hear it. I know he resented me. I know I could never take the place of his real mom, but I’d hoped he’d come around and would at least respect me as his step-mom. He’s a great kid and you’re a great dad.” “Thanks for that. This is not easy for me to ask, but are you being held up here against your will.” “Oh gosh no. I’m so sorry I let you down. After Jeb went to prison, he pushed me away. You know how it was. After we started seeing each other, right from the beginning you gave me the emotional support and the feeling of being loved that I had been missing. “After he was released, he got in touch secretly. Told me what a fool he’d been and how much he missed me. Maybe I should never have married you. I tried hard to love you, and in a way I did.”

“Yes, I’m okay, but things with Jeb are not okay. When I went back to him and for the ﬁrst weeks, it felt right. But now I realize it was a mistake to go back. I’ve decided to leave him and start over.” Jesse almost said, Come back to Tucson with me. We can start over together. The image of Sue Ann held his tongue. Katie said it for him. “I almost wish returning to you would work. But it won’t. I have to create a new life for myself. If I went back to you, there would always be Jeb in the background. The pull would always be there.” “Maybe with time?” Why had he said that? It was no longer how he felt or what he wanted.

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“I get it. In the end your feelings for Jeb were stronger. Well, you’ve told me what I came up here to ﬁnd out. If he is the man you want to be with, I’m prepared to step aside and return to Tucson. I had to reassure myself that you were okay.”

“No. It would not be fair to you. I do care for you very much. I wish Billy felt better about me. I always felt he mistrusted me. Given how things turned out, I guess with good reason.” Jesse reached over to give her a farewell hug. When he did, she began to unbutton his shirt. Looked into his eyes as she did so. “I know I can’t let myself go back to you, but can you let me have one last time? Say no if you don’t want to. I’ll understand.” “You don’t have to.” She continued the unbuttoning. Reached his belt. “But yes, I want to,” she said. “The part of me that loves you for what you’ve meant to me.” He was too much into his desire for her to stop. And he knew it would be a last time. The lovemaking was more sweet than passionate. It was so spontaneous that there was no thought for precautions. He assumed she was still on the pill. When they were ﬁrst married, he wanted a child, preferably a brother for Billy, but she had resisted the idea. It was one of their sources of tension.

Afterwards she volunteered, “Don’t worry about pregnancy. I’m pregnant with Jeb’s child. I went off the pill when I went back to him. He doesn’t know.

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“I brought up having a child as a hypothetical. He made it clear he never wants kids. If I stayed, I know he’d make me have an abortion. One reason I have decided to leave. I’ll raise the baby myself, somewhere far away.” “All I can say is I wish you every happiness.” “I should get back. I need to pack a few things without Jeb or his buddies knowing what I’m up to. I picked today because the lot of them are on some kind of guy trip to Payson. No one to see what I’m up to.” “Will you be all right?” “They won’t be back until late. I’ve arranged with my friend Lu Ann to drive me to Holbrook where I can get the evening bus to Albuquerque. In a few hours I’ll be free. Wish me well. I’ll think of you.” He watched her walk down the road towards Jeb’s cabin.

It was time for him to return to Tucson and to his son. A future with Sue Ann could be explored later. The main issue was now resolved, and he’d avoided a confrontation with Jeb. He would keep Katie’s plans a secret. He could start back now, as it was still early, not yet noon. But no, he wanted a ﬁnal goodbye with his old friend Smitty. He’d sneak back to his truck and drive over to Big Lake. He’d try again to call his son and share with Smitty the good news about Katie and his developing feelings for Sue Ann. Did Smitty remember they had gone together in high school of all things? He chuckled at the thought. He arrived at Big Lake shortly before one-thirty. Smitty was at his desk ﬁnishing his lunch sandwich. “Well the prodigal returns,” Smitty greeted. “And I’m on my way back to Tucson. I’m sorry about not keeping in contact but I thought that was best. And the best news, everything with Katie is resolved. She’s leaving Show Low, but don’t worry, it’s not with me. She’s heading for Albuquerque to start a new life.” “I’ve been worried. Billy too. He called every evening last week. Why didn’t you check in?”

“Well at least you now have the closure you were after. Incidentally, two guys came around yesterday wanting to talk to you. Sent here by Billy.” “Oh god, I’ve really let him down. We should call Billy. I did call last night. Lots to tell you about that. But it went to voice, so I left a message. We can ﬁnd out if he got it.” Smitty handed Jesse his ofﬁce phone. Again, the call went to voice messaging. “Maybe he went down to see Grampa Kyle like I suggested. Let’s try there.”

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“I totally messed up. I let my cell battery run down. Discovered I’d forgot my charger, the one I could plug into my truck. I had to keep a low proﬁle. Couldn’t go into town to use a phone or buy a charger. If Jeb learned I was up here, Billy could be in real danger. “I kept hoping I’d get the meet with Katie over sooner than it happened and be back home in Tucson. But things got complicated to say the least. I’ve been so wrought up about meeting with Katie that I kind of went bonkers.”

Jesse dialed Kyle’s number. Got voice messaging again. He left a message saying he’d be home by about this time tomorrow. “Let’s go fishing,” Jesse suggested. “Renew those great times of my youth. I can tell you more about my week out on the water.” “That’s a fine idea. Having to sit behind this desk, I don’t get out often enough. All my regulars left a bunch of hours ago.” Smitty hung a Gone Fishing sign on his door. They got in an available boat and set out to recapture the past. Out on the lake with Smitty, Jesse was no longer worried about being spotted. Mission accomplished. In the morning he’d be heading back to Tucson straight from Smitty’s house. The presence in town of two private snoops asking about him had made a lot of folks aware he’d been in the area for at least a week. Water under the bridge. Now the loose end was Sue Ann, not Katie. He had rekindled feelings that demanded further exploring. These were occasional private thoughts while they spent a companionable afternoon scaring some fish. He shared with Smitty the highlights of his week. His collaboration with Sue Ann in arranging the meeting with Katie. 51

How relieved he felt to have closure with Katie and see her in a good place with her life. Told Smitty about having sex with her a ﬁnal time. She was the one who initiated it, but he let her. “Maybe the best way she could express she cared about you and was sorry how it turned out.” Jesse couldn’t have been more wrong about Katie being in a good place with her life. As Smitty was preparing to ﬁlet some rainbow his phone rang. He answered and listened intently, punctuated by expletives such as the hell you say and that’s terrible news and Jesse will be devastated.

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When Smitty related the call, the news was like a sledge hammer. He felt sick. There’d be no quick return to Tucson. He was, after all, her legal husband. He would have to drive into Show Low to identify the body. He’d call Chief Daniels in the morning and make arrangements. A resolve that crumbled when he learned he had become their prime suspect. Heard it on the nine o’clock Fox News from Phoenix. Since a Show Low murder was a rare event, news of Katie’s murder had made it all the way to the Valley of the Sun. Read more.

About seven years ago at the ripe age of seventy-two, Robert Solem retired to Tucson and began writing detective fiction as a kind of bucket list challenge. His main protagonists are four retired Harley-riding free spirits and part-time private investigators, early sixties and counting backwards, who call themselves the Merry Marauders. The quartet consists of a retired small-town cop, a former Special Forces Marine, a former college basketball star, and an all-around nice guy with the heart of a lion. The author has peopled their fictional world with a variety of lady friends, siblings, offspring, lawyers, cops, and mentors. Five books later, he still enjoys the act of writing and has embraced it as a way of keeping the mental cobwebs at bay. To expand his small but growing core of readers, he has recently joined Facebook and is working on a website, but to date doesn’t tweet.

Chapter 1 “I’m here!” What I had witnessed in the past fortyﬁve minutes had been more electrifying than anything I had encountered in my ten years as a dedicated, hardworking psychotherapist. Neither my training nor all I had learned since had prepared me for it. If anyone, even another therapist, had excitedly said, “You’ll never believe this!” and described the same exact scene, I would have summarily dismissed that person with, “Oh, really! What have you been smoking?”

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Jessica: The Autobiography of An Infant by Jeffrey Von Glahn

I was sitting with Jessica Page on her living room floor. We were in her house, rather than my office, because of her daring proposal that we radically increase the pace of our therapy sessions. To be perfectly honest, our previous working schedule had succeeded only in piling one unproductive session on top of another. That had gone on for more months than I cared to remember. Our lack of progress was certainly not a result of laziness or lack of motivation in either of us. For nearly three years, Jessica had never missed, cancelled, or even been late for a session. I had tried everything I could think of to jump-start her therapy. There had been plenty of promising beginnings (I was full of new ideas), but they had all flamed out. I had no way of knowing then that I was laboring under an illusion about who was sitting across from me and had been ever since Jessica first stepped into my office. 53

If someone had tried to convince me of the error in my thinking, I would have dismissed the notion out of hand because I would not have conceived of the explanation as a psychological problem. I would not have even understood it as a human problem.

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Jessica was sitting in a yoga position and had been sitting like that for the past forty-five minutes. Her upper body was thrust slightly forward. One hand cradled the other in her lap. Waves of brown hair lay on her shoulders. I was leaning with my back against the couch. My legs were stretched out in front of me, nearly touching hers. Her eyes remained focused on the wall behind the couch, and her line of sight passed just over my shoulder. She had not looked me in the eye the entire time. All of her attention had been focused inward, on the experience she had apparently been reliving. Her last words still rang in my ears. Tentative and reflective, she initially said, “Do you remember all this stuff ? Do you think I’m cuckoo?” Assertively and quickly, she then said, “I know all this happened.” “All this stuff ” was nothing less than Jessica’s birth experience in all its phenomenal detail. From her first words of “I was floating in water and hearing it flutter in my ear” to her last, I had no doubt she believed every word of what she was reporting.

All the while, she remained in a trancelike state. One part of her was seemingly aware of me staring at her. My eyes and every other part of my body silently urged her to continue while the rest of her waited to discover what new and exciting thoughts about her birth experience were going to emerge next. Most of her words came out in bits and pieces. Sometimes, there were whole sentences. A few times, she hurried back to a previous point and ﬁlled in more detail. Her voice rang with the excitement of unexpected surprises. Awe and, at times, disbelief tinged it. There were also short bursts of tears, sharp indignation over how she had been treated, and laughter over the medical team having a bad day. All the while, she seemed as mesmerized as I was. She was ﬁnally giving voice to mind altering experiences from before she was even aware she had a mind. I, the silent, but privileged, listener, sat back. I simply watched and did not say a word, even though I savored this completely unexpected and, as I quickly perceived, truly once-in-a-lifetime experience. I only watched and waited, fully trusting the genuineness of what Jessica was revealing.

“I was ﬂoating in water and hearing it ﬂutter in my ear. I heard a steady heartbeat. I was stretching and yawning, calm and peaceful. My only concern was growing. All that was happening seemed to be in preparation for a different dimension in my life.

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Out of fear I might break the magic spell, I was not about to do anything, including say a word, move a muscle, or change my facial expression. I saw what was happening as all perfectly natural. All movement driven by internal healing mechanisms, which only operated if certain conditions existed. Establishing those conditions was my job. There wasn’t anything mysterious about them. They included creating a safe atmosphere, expressing patient (but persistent) interest, and not doing anything that might interfere with what a small number of like-minded colleagues and I considered the natural healing process. Like a midwife at an imminent birth, I had to wait. If Jessica’s psyche decided the time was right, healing would occur. In this instance, that moment had arrived.

“I remember ‘thinking’ before I was born all that was going to happen. I was going to be born so somebody could love me and touch me, so I could be enough, so I could be a part of a big, working thing and I could inﬂuence the world. “All of it was going to be so neat. I was going to be a part of a whole big world. The world was a good place, and I was going to be a part of it! Me! The world was going to be better because I was here, because there was nothing like me. Nowhere could the world get what it was going to get from me. I was important, as important as anything. Even the tiniest speck! “During labor, I felt squeezed. I wasn’t frightened. I was going along with the process of being born. I was starting to get out when somebody pushed me back in. Gosh darn it! I was not in charge of my birth anymore. They were pushing my head in, and I couldn’t breathe. I was very frightened and confused. I thought I was going to die before I could get out. “Somebody was jerking me and scaring me. Everything was just jerking and pulling and turning. It hurt everywhere on my body. I didn’t know what to do. I was dizzy. I wanted to go back to where it was quiet. Make them stop! Leave me alone! Everyone leave me alone, and I’ll be just ﬁne. Let me do it!

“The doctor simply plucked me out of my mother and said, ‘Here’s the little troublemaker. I can tell she’s going to be a stubborn one.’ My mom hurt, and she hurt physically because of me. There was a lot of confusion. The lights were bright, and the room was noisy. The medical team was in a panic, and everyone was yelling. “It seemed like the whole world was a mess. Things weren’t going right, and it was all because of me—because I was ready to be born and I wasn’t doing it right! Everyone was frightened and scared, and they didn’t understand. “Two nurses took me and washed me roughly. They were talking and laughing with each other and were unaware of how they were treating me or how I felt. I remember one of them saying, ‘Who do you think you are? You’re just another person to take care of.’

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“I was hungry and screaming and scared. It didn’t matter. Nobody wanted to touch me and hold me and smile at me. There was a whole room full of people. I just had to wait! I wasn’t any more important than anybody else! Everyone was doing what had to be done, and I had to just behave and stop crying.

“And I’d learn…I’d learn I was a nobody, that I was just like everybody else. It didn’t matter what I wanted or expected. I was in the real world, and I’d just have to wait. I was nobody special, and I didn’t deserve anything anymore than anybody else did. It didn’t make any difference who I was. I was just one more person to take care of. It all made me feel like I wasn’t what they were looking for, like I was a nobody. Who the hell was I? “They weren’t concerned about me. They were just concerned with what I had done and how hard I had made it for everybody. Like I had any control over it! All I had done was be born. And it was no big deal! I came out ‘thinking,’ ‘Ta, ta, I’m here!’ And everybody goes, ‘Big deal!’ “Everybody felt like I had to prove myself. It was like everybody thought it was a tough, mean, crummy world. Welcome to it, kid! You’re no different than the rest of us. It’s all crummy and rotten and look what you’re a part of. They must have had a lot of bad attitudes.

“Everybody thought the world was crummy and a mess and that I added to the awfulness and the crumminess. I felt so disappointed. Yuck. This was what I had waited for?

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“I felt like going and hiding. What did I do good? I was just born! It didn’t matter what I had to offer. Nobody saw any good in me. I was waiting for someone to be so delighted and happy I was here, that I was out and now the world was a better place because there was one more good thing. Nobody felt I had contributed something only I could. I thought something unique had just happened and never in the space of time would anything like that happen again, because I was different. I was one of a kind, and I could contribute things nobody else could. “I do feel like I’ve committed a grave transgression because I was born. Because of me, I added more hurt to this world. I didn’t add good things. I wasn’t good, and special, and one of a kind. I felt so awful, like I didn’t have a right to live.

“After being cleaned up, I went to sleep. When I woke up, I decided to give the world another chance. It was tough being born. It was.” Then she looked at me directly and asked, “Do you remember all this stuff ? Do you think I’m cuckoo? I know all this happened.” I certainly didn’t think she was cuckoo, and immediately reassured her. Although I had never before witnessed anyone remembering his or her birth, or even read about it, several friends had told me previously about reported instances of it. My friends were interested in psychology solely for their own personal growth. They and I were also intrigued by alternative therapies, which is where some of the most creative work was being done. It was also some of the craziest work, and one had to be careful in assessing any of it. All I had heard about birth memories was in the form of verbal reports. There weren’t any videotapes, or even an audio recording. No previous claims of birth memories had been strong enough to convince me they were real. But, from the way this memory flowed out of Jessica, I now had no doubt that such recall was possible. It was a confirmation of the perceptiveness of Jessica’s spirited proposal to drastically increase the pace of our therapy sessions. At the same time, it also affirmed her faith in her committed but bumbling therapist who had failed miserably to figure out how to energize her therapy. 57

Still, as fascinating and unexpected as Jessica’s birth memory had been, it amounted only to a tantalizing tidbit to what I would eventually learn about how the earliest stages of Jessica’s humanness had been twisted from their natural course of development. Read more. Jeffrey Von Glahn, Ph.D., has been a psychotherapist for almost 50 years. That experience has been more exciting and fulfilling than he had ever imagined. This intimate way of engaging with another person continues to have the same mesmeric appeal it has always had. On occasion, he has suddenly exclaimed, “If I believed in reincarnation, my fondest wish would be to come back as a therapist.” What has been especially rewarding for Jeffrey is when he’s been able to help someone reconnect with a “lost” part of their basic humanness. That’s when he feels he’s helped to give birth to a new human being.

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Each client presents another opportunity for him to learn more about psychotherapy. What makes it all an especially significant experience is that he gets to use all of his intellectual skills and all of his basic caring instincts at the same time.

About half an hour later, as I was relaxing and letting my mind ﬂoat in unknown realms of peace and harmony, a woman approached me quietly. With sweetness in her voice, she said “Hello.” I looked up at her, dazzled from the sun, and replied “Hello.” “My name is Nuelle, can I join you for a minute?” she asked, still sweet in her tone. “Err... sure, please,” I stammered, feeling a bit startled by her sudden appearance. “I hope I’m not disturbing.” She sounded concerned about invading my privacy. “No, not at all. I was just chilling out and enjoying the nature around here,” I responded.

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In My World by Daniel Pietrzak

“Hmmm, so what’s your name if you don’t mind me asking?” At that moment I knew that she could be a potential partner to have another strange conversation with. Otherwise, no one would care about my name, I thought to myself. “My name is Deon,” I responded politely. “It’s very nice to meet you. Deon do you come here often? Nuelle was up for a conversation. I liked that. Immediately I’d grown intrigued about my new acquaintance, she sounded very warm and had a unique charm in the way she spoke. “No I don’t, it’s actually my ﬁrst time here. I heard a lot of good things about this place, so I decided to come and see it for myself.” “Oh, I see. What is it that has actually convinced you to come over here?” “Well, I recently came across a quote written by some wise person saying

to follow my passion, so I packed my bag and came over here. Besides that, I needed a break from work.” “Oh, I see. So, what are you passionate about, if you don’t mind me asking?” “I’m not so sure. I like to travel in nature, I like trees and lakes and mountains… that’s what I’ve ﬁgured out so far, apart from that I don’t really know, to be honest with you. What is your passion?” I turned the question around in return. “I like to help people.”

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“Aaaand?” I found her answer to be too short to grasp anything out of it. “And I live my life fulfilling my heart’s desire, which is helping people,” Nuelle said. “Wow, you are fortunate to say that you are actually living your life fulfilling your heart’s desire. I’ve never met anyone who could say that the way you just did. How do you help people?” “I read people’s emotions and when they are experiencing hardship or confusion in their lives. Sometimes I talk to them and help them find the way out of an unpleasant situation.” “Hmm, it’s a pity I didn’t meet you years ago,” I muttered under my breath. “Excuse me? I didn’t catch that.” “No, no it’s nothing, I was just thinking out loud. Maybe you could help me find my passion?” I asked. “Maybe I could. What do you understand about the word passion?” “Well, it is when you like or enjoy doing something. Isn’t it?” “Yes, but passion is much more than that, it has positive emotions attached to doing that something,” Nuelle said with an adorable smile. “Okay, would you be able to be a bit more specific please?” I asked. I was trying to glean more practical information from her. There was something deep in her appearance, but I couldn’t figure out what that it was in that moment. I just patiently waited for her response, which came almost immediately. “Yes, Deon. Take a deep breath, and pay attention to my words as I speak them; are you ready?”

“Passion is pure devotion towards a person, goal or cause; like water, it enhances life with joy, fulfilment, meaning, and enthusiasm. It is directly connected to happiness. It is a sincere desire in your heart. It may reveal itself as butterflies in your stomach, a twinkle in your eye. It is your magnificent but tranquil obsession. It’s the unquestionable virtue that is far more valuable than money, power, fame or any type of possession. Passion is the reason you get up in the morning, walk in the rain, run through mountains, devote your free time and sacrifice all the less important things. Passion keeps you committed to success, motivates you during hard times, and reflects your confidence, makes you laugh or even cry tears of joy, and it keeps you in a good mood. Or, as I like to say, on a higher vibration.

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“Sure!” I was so ready! Nuelle’s blue eyes became brighter, almost as if crystal sparkles lit up within them. She looked at me with compassion and began saying precisely what I needed but didn’t expect at all to hear at that moment.

Passion creates the best solutions for problems and spreads good vibes across the planet, which you accumulate within yourself first; it inspires associates, resolves issues and impresses other people. Passion is the key ingredient that allows you to go to the furthest places where others won’t dare to go because they live in fear of failure. It makes you try things others won’t dare to try because they use their rational minds, and it makes you the magnificent person others won’t even dare to become, as they don’t dream as far out. Deon, passion is the path to all your dreams, it’s the burning flame of your soul, and it’s the indicator that you are fulfilling your soul’s desires.” When Nuelle stopped, I remained still for a while. I literally couldn’t say a word. I stared at her with my mouth half open. I had chills running all over my body. I was astonished by the grace, the softness and the energy of her speech. Finally, I stammered, after I’d noticed that it had been a long while and I had still not uttered a word. “This was the most amazing definition of passion I have ever heard in my life.” “Thank you. I’m glad you liked it. Does this answer your question?” All I could really muster was a short sentence. “Absolutely! Thank you, Nuelle.” 61

Daniel Pietrzak is a researcher, artist, writer, and author of the new novel “In my world” which is the first book of a series. With a decade of researching various metaphysical topics and writing articles for blogging websites, Daniel has developed a uniquely blended vision of the world as we know it with one that exists within imaginary realms. His latest work is a fiction book in which for the first time his voice shines through creating an emotional journey, filled with unpredictable and profound events.

A Change of Rules by L. L. Thomsen Episode 1 of The Missing Shield

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Solancei swallowed feelings of irony. She’d tried to oblige Klaas; really, she had, but now there was only one way she could possibly stop this mad Zanzierian from laying a hand on her again - and it was not going to involve a diplomatic exchange of sealed parchments and signed charters! Instead, ‘Cheska from New Wood’ had just been given a promotion in skills and motivation – the haitu alone would no longer be enough - and in turn, she wondered what Simaro would choose to throw at her. With the thought, a surge of apprehension bound her feet to the ground as she considered the limited options. Why he’d not availed himself of more tricks earlier, she didn’t know – didn’t understand - for she knew him highly trained and consequently imagined him surely able to claim Master of Kizano, 3rd Grade. So why had he held back? It was a worrying question she did not have an immediate answer to, and she’d have to assume that he wouldn’t prove as ‘courteous’ a second time. Indeed, since he’d proven unwilling to accept her ﬁrst win, there was absolutely nothing to indicate that matters would differ now, and this… well, this was tricky! 62

Watching Simaro slash the air experimentally with his blue haitu, she shook her head, cursing under her breath. Right now, the gods might as well take her for the idiot she’d been for allowing herself to be trapped in this situation. And whilst they were at it, let them take Chief Eso Mehadja’s ﬂecking, persuasive tongue as well.

nice bit of practise.’

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Lowering her lashes as if to centre herself in preparation of resuming the ﬁght, Solancei kept half her attention on Simaro, simultaneously chancing another surreptitious glance at the guards by the makeshift gate. He was in the way but that needn’t stop her - and in a blink, she’d made her decision. She’d come here to partake in a jackal ﬁght, not to see it escalate into some imbecile situation where her mad opponent – gods curse him to the Beyond – called the shots!

‘Just a light bit of exercise before the call of duty.’ She could recall the Chief ’s smoothly- persuasive words without fail. ‘A new challenger has stepped forth – no duel – only sport. It’ll be tricky but a win is not impossible, and I expect you’ll do quite well. It should be naught, if not a

Practise? Hah! Solancei knew she’d have to curb her overpowering need to ram those very words right down Klaas’ throat when next they lay eye on each other! That. And more! Pushing all ideas of strangling Klaas from her mind, she drew a clenching breath and mumbled a small prayer for Kira’Cha to lend her a sliver of good luck. She usually preferred to make her own luck rather than trust in favours bestowed by the capricious goddess, but right now she’d need as much as she could get, and if only the ‘Empress of Games’ would extend her a fraction of goodwill, she should be able to see this through. Should… As it tallied, the light in her opponent’s eyes could have melted the hoar frost from the walls of her keep back at Ocean’s End but she looked him blandly in the eye. 63

Someone’s crude comments gripped Simaro’s attention for the briefest of time and in that split moment, where his eye drew towards the joker and his mouth curled up, simulating appreciation, Solancei steeled herself and attacked. Originally from Denmark, L. L. currently lives with her family + two cats and a dog, in the back-of-beyond near the Sherwood Forrest, U.K. Beginning her writing journey when she was called by the ‘muse-who-must-be-obeyed’ after the birth of her first child, L always puts the best and worst into the melting pot, always striving to weave a guaranteed unique read. Inspired by Wurts, Hobb, Erikson, and Martin, she endeavours to look beneath the surface of her characters, whilst providing the reader with an epic experience of visual candour and elaborate world building. At present time, she’s yet to discover the truth about the Universe, but feels she sometimes comes close; certainly without Coffee, Chinese food and candles, the world would be a much darker place.

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If you like to chat books and writing, please feel free to drop her a line anytime. Her inbox is only a click away. Find out more about L.L. here: https://llthomsen.com

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How to Make Scenes Move by S. P. Brown I recently read a story I had committed to reviewing and, sure enough, I struggled through it. It was supposed to be a thriller, and as such should have been fast paced. Further, it had some international intrigue, the kind of story I usually like. But I could not get into the story. AT ALL. The problem was that this writer ﬁlled the entire novel with scenes that didn’t really go anywhere. Here is what I mean. A scene in any book must have polarity. That is, the scene must have movement. Think of it as an electric charge. Take a scene that starts negative. Let’s say that your character is attending his best friend’s funeral. Wow, a huge negative polarity right at the start of the scene. Now, for that scene to move there must be a place to go from this hugely negative polarity.

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One option is for the scene to become more negative.

But another option is to more from a negative polarity to a positive one. In this case the tension developed is good instead of bad.

“Tension, any tension, is the stuff of story. Without it you have no story to tell.” So, how would this work for our funeral scene. There could be a happenstance meeting of the love interest for your protagonist. She knew your dead friend, liked him, your characters commiserate together, have coffee and hit it off. Tension, but good tension. Movement from negative to positive.

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Problem: how to accomplish that when the negative value is so high to start with in this example. But it can be done, and you can probably think of a few ways to do that. For example, the dead friend was a CIA operative and evil terrorist decides to add insult to injury by bombing the funeral. More people dead, right? It works.

See how that works? Scenes “turn” on this type of movement or they don’t turn at all and go nowhere along with your story. Compare the charge at the beginning and the end of your scene. If the value doesn’t change polarity, negative to positive or positive to negative, or more negative (and vice versa) then why is the scene in your narrative? That’s an excellent question to put to all your scenes. Scenes have to do a couple of things only – development character and move plot forward. But they must do this with added tension and if there are no polarity shifts, then there is no movement and you have a worthless scene. Too many worthless scenes and you have a worthless book people can’t get into. They stop reading this book and they never pick up another one of yours. How you develop your novel along these lines is often dictated by genre speciﬁc conventions which dictate pacing. But no matter the genre, simple attention to polarity and scene shifts is guaranteed to spice up your writing. 67

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S. P. Brown always had heroes as a child. Born to a painter and a homemaker, these heroes mostly took form in his big brother, Harry, and those populating the pages of Marvel Comics. Realizing he didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the right stuff to be a superhero himself, he concentrated on academics at Louisiana State University and The University of Southern Mississippi, where he earned his doctorate. He went from there to his first academic post at The University of Mississippi. Others followed, as did many, many scientific publications and several textbooks. But the call of storytelling remained strong. He answered that call with his debut novel, The Legacy. Other novels followed, Veiled Memory and Fallen Wizard. The sequel to Veiled Memory, The Ruby Ring, will be published this year.

The moment someone opens a book and begins reading, that person offers the author her trust. The reader has conﬁdence that the author won’t betray and abandon her. All too often—and, unfortunately, I see this mostly with indie authors—writers fail that trust and lose their readers’ conﬁdence because they do any or all the following: • Write heroes or heroines who are too stupid/stubborn/sleazy to live; • End books on unannounced cliffhangers (stories written in installments); and, • Fail to perform the due diligence of research.

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A Matter of Trust By Holly Bargo

TSTL protagonists Realism in characterization plays an important part in reader acceptance of a protagonist. Nothing dooms a reader’s affection for a character like a character who consistently makes poor decisions, jumps to conclusions, and otherwise gives no evidence of having two brain cells to rub together. Occasional idiocy can be swallowed: no one is perfect. Consistently imbecilic behavior offends. You protagonist should not be candidate for a Darwin Award.

“Don’t help your readers root for your protagonist’s untimely demise.” When it comes to heroes, romance readers love nothing more than an alpha male. For some reason, many popular stories include womanizing, arrogant, alpha males who treat women like toilet paper: use once and discard. I quickly lose any affection for a hero who acts in such a despicable manner. Your heroes should be ﬂawed; they can make mistakes—everybody does—but enabling, accepting, or enacting violence against women is just wrong for a hero. Reserve such behavior for your villains.

Undisclosed cliffhangers Readers expect to receive a full story when they purchase a book. Those who ﬁnd that the author confuses a serial with a series leave scathing reviews. I personally dislike serials; however, they remain a legitimate literary tradition that does not offend if the reader knows at the outset that the installment will end on a cliffhanger. In such cases, notify potential readers in the book’s description (i.e., cover blurb) that the story ends on a cliffhanger. Reads also appreciate knowing how many installments they must purchase to reach the conclusion of the story. Popular fantasy series like Wheel of Timeseries by Robert Jordan and A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin epitomize the serial tradition. I read several of Jordan’s books before growing disgusted with a never-ending story, because I had no idea how many books I’d have to buy to ﬁnish the series.

Lack of research

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I see this all too frequently in the manuscripts I edit and the self-published stories I read. For instance, one story had the heroine collecting

“Any detail that a few minutes of research—Google is your friend—can verify or debunk must be correct. Even the wackiest fantasy and most improbable science ﬁction need elements of realism to ground the reader’s trust and suspend disbelief.”

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her alpaca’s fleece by combing through it and gathering the fibers that pulled free. Um, no. Collection of alpaca fleece occurs through shearing the animal. Like sheep. In another story, the author has her two handsome heroes baling and stacking hay—shirtless. Um, no. Anyone who’s ever handled hay knows that shirts and work gloves are mandatory. Hay scratches tender human skin and it itches. Trust me. Another author’s hero, a police detective, operates 100 miles out of his jurisdiction. Um, no. Still another author refers to the heroine’s panties and hero’s zipper in a story set in 1842. Um, no. Fiery explosions in space? How does that happen without oxygen? Just ... no.

Anachronisms fall under this category, too. Realism entails a natural way of speech—or at least a vernacular that is natural to the character. This includes not only omission of modern slang and terminology in historical fiction, but also the deft use of popular phrasing common at the time and in the place of the characters. An author who’s not sure of period phrasing need only read the contemporary fiction of the era in which the story takes place. In addition to poor writing and sloppy editing, betrayal of the reader’s trust destroys the reader’s confidence. A reader who loses confidence in the author will not read any more of that author’s work and may even leave a scathing review vilifying the author’s incompetence and failure as a storyteller. A competent editor can help with catching such content errors, but it’s up to the writer to perform the necessary due diligence and avoid them in the first place.

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Holly Bargo is a pseudonym and really did exist as a temperamental Appaloosa mare fondly remembered for guarding toddler children and crushing a pager. Holly and her husband live on a hobby farm in southwest Ohio. They have two children, one graduating from college in 2019 and the other serving in the United States military. Holly publishes primarily in the romance genre, although her latest book is Six Shots Each Gun: 12 Tales of the Old West, co-authored with Russ Towne, a bestselling author in the western genre.

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Revisit your anchors - 3 strategies for achieving creative goals amidst your busy life by Andrew Kooman

Anchors are those heavy, metallic things, connected to chains and fastened to the deck of a boat that, when thrown overboard sink to the ocean floor, immovable, so that said ship does not float away, no matter how rough the seas. Here I’m using the term as a metaphor. If you’re reading this, creativity, in some form, floats your boat. But what keeps you fixed in your determination? What holds your resolve in place? The affable G.K. Chesterton wrote that “poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea.” The threat in our creative pursuits is to be driven and tossed by the wind, blown about and thrown against the rocks. Life gets busy, the income-gen73

erating tasks tire us out, family commitments require so much of us that all the good intentions to write get dashed and our creativity capsizes. Don’t let your creative goals drown or disappear in the insanity of life this year. Revisit your anchors. Why did you want to create in the ﬁrst place? How will the world be better because of what you offer it this year creatively?

“You have something to write. A poem, a novel, a short story. You have an inventive idea that can transform lives and if you don’t do it, who will?” I’m not talking about how you get that idea to the world or land the literary agent or even how you publish the story. I’m talking about the joyful and mundane and infuriatingly important act of creation. Why are you doing it?

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This “why” is your anchor. There is a reason and that’s something you need to keep in mind. The vision I return to when I feel lost in what I’m doing, have moments of discouragement, or need to evaluate if I should pursue an opportunity is this phrase that I can mutter under my breath like a mantra: I tell stories that afﬁrm the value of life and capture the imagination of the heart. Feeling tossed by the seas? Here are three suggestions for how to remain connected to the purpose of why you create: 1. Write down the reason why you are compelled to create It may be in a journal. It may be on a sticky note that you afﬁx to your mirror so that every time you put on your makeup in the morning or shave, you’re reminded of it. Perhaps that much contact with said ‘reason’ is overwhelming, so you need to tuck it away in a place where you know you’ll stumble upon it again in six months (the inside jacket pocket of your winter coat if you’re in Canada and have regular winters) or a Google reminder set to notify you ev74

2. Share your work with people you trust Some people write simply for the satisfaction of the creative process itself. However, most people I encounter who write do so because they want others to engage their work. When you create something it’s important to share it. You may need to set terms around the sharing (e.g. “It’s just a rough draft” or “please give it back” or “I don’t want critical feedback, just your gut reaction…”) but you need to share.

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ery three months. Whatever you need and however often you need to be reminded, write down your why.

Ultimately, creating is about enhancing people’s lives, serving others, and expressing truth that is vital. The risk of sharing and the act of humility to offer work to others reminds you what your creativity is all about and also serves to realign and redirect your creative output if it’s off track of its purpose. Sharing your work keeps you anchored to your purpose if you’re honest and open in your craft. 3. Reﬂect in the quiet and lonely Taking time to reﬂect on everything that comes with the creative journey is important. If your creative gift is applied in the marketplace, then there can be a lot of feedback, criticism, and input that comes with the territory that can impact your why.

The market may also demand content that you’re not passionate about. You might feel dislocated from your tribe or audience and don’t know where to find them. There can be a hundred other things that pile up and cause you to feel disconnected from who you are as a creative and why you create. When you start to really feel all that, it is usually a sign that you haven’t been reflecting enough. While not an exhaustive list, these three suggestions can help you float in the infinite sea and not get washed away when life’s stormy moments threaten to overwhelm your creative process.

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Andrew Kooman is an award-winning writer and producer who writes for the page, stage and screen. His critically acclaimed work has been produced around the world and translated into more than 10 languages. His screenwriting debut She Has A Name is now available on Amazon Prime. Learn more about his work and Book 2 in his YA series at www.andrewkooman.com.

One of those days… Did you ever have one of those delicious mornings where for a moment everything was right? The birds singing, butterflies floating above, dancing in a perfect swirl, and you’re smiling on the inside and the outside all at the same time. I did! Yep, today I set out for a long walk with Southern Grace knowing the skies were threatening to unload buckets of water, but I plunged forward anyway. And it was magnificent. Yes, it started to rain, at first just a soft mist brushing against my face then moved into a steady drizzle and by the time I was blocks from returning home the heavens opened and I was soaked. But it was good…. Why?

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Are You Living Your Dream Life? By Lisa Ortigara Crego

Living the Dream I’m living my dream. I’m doing what feels right to me. I’m not looking for approval, acceptance, or anything else for that matter. How did you get there you might ask? I went through the tough stuff, as we all do—and it shaped me into the woman I am today. I went through many seasons in life that were darn challenging but at the end of the day (sorry for the cliché!!) I found my authentic self. And you can too.

We can ﬁnd ourselves in the ordinary—like a simple morning walk embracing all that is around us. We don’t need to seek the spectacular as it will come when it’s ready to appear. Often we question if we are good enough for whatever our dream life might be and somehow talk ourselves out of believing we can accomplish our pie in the sky because we listen to all the doubting Thomas’s out there. Don’t listen. Listen to your own inner whisper and take the plunge. Since I was a little girl I knew I would write books. I didn’t know how but I knew I would. I used to write on one of the old fashion typewriters banging out my little stories feeling such delight with each Once Upon a Time…followed by The End. And then somehow life got the best of me and I went to college, graduate school and then a doctoral program to learn about the mind.

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I wanted to know why we do what we do, especially with regards to addiction as I was struggling with a food addiction throughout my teens and young adult life.

And so…my dream began to appear, slowly and steadily, ﬁrst in my own recovery, then my private practice helping others ﬁnd the same recovery. In time I added teaching at DeVry university, courses such as psychology, along with a host of classes including a Capstone course, and then as luck would have it, back-tracked to writing books…my original childhood castle in the sky. Yes, I’m living the dream.

Blocked by Fears

You do finish lots of things. Don’t get stuck in the mind chatter, which I talk about in my second book: Release Your Obsession with Diet Chatter: Heal from the Inside Out. Our mind can come up with all kinds of excuses, none of which are even true. Reading on with Joann’s 8 fears, I was able to plug in one step after the other to how we humans convince ourselves we can’t do this or that. Yes you can! If you click on her article you can easily find her 8 steps fit wherever you might be stuck, just plug it into your situation. And who knows once you connect with Joanna you might find yourself writing books too!

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Not long ago I was reading one of my favorite writers blog, Joanna Penn, who writes non-ﬁction (my favorite!) and thrillers (too scary for chicken me!) and a weekly podcast. I came across one of her blogs entitled: The 8 Fears That Hold Writers Back. Though the blog post was written for writers, I found her powerful steps applied to any areas in a person’s life that hold them back. For instance, often we compare ourselves to others fearing we are not good enough in whatever our dream-life might be— writing or otherwise. You are good enough. Or I never ﬁnish anything. Stop that.

Unexpected Strength Last night I was sitting on my outside swing reading, It’s Not Supposed to be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered, a book I got as a gift from my eldest son this past Christmas, by Lysa Terkeurst, and found it filled with golden treasures. One of my favorite lines in her book: “Even the most grounded people can feel hijacked by the winds of unpredictable change,” rang loud and true. You are not alone. Life is filled with the unexpected, with roads that twist and turn and sometimes big cliffs waiting at the end. But, I read somewhere, good always comes out of bad, and I find this to be true.

Dream

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I say dream…and dream big. Don’t let anyone or anything stop you from living your best life. Don’t measure your success by your preconceived idea of others accomplishments.

Write out your dream life in a journal, where to start and where it will take you. Believe it’s possible and it will slowly become so. Keep it realistic. And keep it your dream, not what you think someone else thinks your dream is. I remember a student once said in a Critical Thinking class that his dream was to own an island, be a millionaire…and that this was going to happen. Okay, maybe. But ﬁrst, he needed a skill to secure a job, which then would lead to earning money and then the rest of his plan could sprout in time— so can yours. Are you living your dream-life? Do you have a dream?

Dr. Ortigara Crego was born in Chicago, Illinois where she resided most of her young life with the exception of five years in a small town in Wautoma Wisconsin. In her late 20â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s she moved to South Florida to enjoy the tropical beaches and paradise ambiance. In her spare time she loves walking the beaches with her beloved dog Southern Grace, cycling, reading, and writing on spiritual recovery from food addiction. Dr. Lisa started in the weight-loss industry with Weight Watchers, speaking to hospital personnel, employers, and the general public on the topics of weight loss and healthful eating. To date she maintains a nearly 100 pound loss using the approach she teaches.

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Did you ever have one of those delicious mornings where for a moment everything was right? Where the birds chirped out melodies that made your heart warm and golden butterďŹ&#x201A;ies danced overhead? How about smiling on the inside and the outside all at the same time? Let me know your dreams. I love hearing from you.

Producing a self-published audiobook by Robert J. Emery Following my comments, narrator David Loving shares his process for narrating the audiobook for the novel Midnight Black – The Purge.

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The decision to publish my novel as an audio book was not a quick one. Initially, I planned to publish only e-book and a paperback version. But when I read articles how audiobooks were selling in greater numbers than e-books and paperbacks, I began to make plans for mine. I published the e-book version with Draft2 Digital and Amazon Kindle and IngramSpark for both an e-book and paperback – I wanted to go wide. I found Findaway Voices, a producer and distributor of audiobooks. They provided me with 10 narrator auditions to choose from. We settled on David Loving. David sent a couple of recorded chapters from my manuscript before we committed to him. Each time he would finish a chapter, Findaway sent it to me for my approval. If changes were needed, I could enter them on the same page and they went directly to David Loving. It was that simple. The narrator’s fee is based on the narrator’s rate and the final running time in my case it was 7.2 hours. It was an overall easy experience. Initial sales in the first two weeks were more than encouraging and convinced me to do it again on future books. Keep in mind that an audiobook can take up to two months from recording, to quality control, to final distribution. If possible, it is best to release it at the same time as your e-book and paperback for the greatest impact. DAVID LOVING, NARRATOR, talks about narrating Midnight Black – The Purge. 82

The other perpetual challenge for was keeping the characters clearly differentiated in scenes that have more than three characters participating in the dialogue. Especially when, as in Midnight Black, several of the characters are late-middle age ex-military men. On Midnight, I received really quick and on-point feedback from the author—sometimes the same day I loaded a chapter. That’s a big help.

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I read through a quarter of the Midnight Black manuscript the day I got it. It has a Blade Runner-ish, sci-ﬁ noir feel that I really like.Much of the book takes place inside the main character’s head. On one level, that’s easy for me as a narrator because it means I don’t have to worry about switching between character voices. But it also means I have to keep from getting too monotonous—just my regular narration voice over and over. Also, it was a challenge to differentiate between the main character, Billy Russell, thinking something to himself and Billy saying something out loud. I did that by adding extra space between the lines and by speaking the lines spoken out loud with a slightly louder and sharper tone, so (hopefully) my voice comes out sounding slightly (but not too) different.

As to my approach to a project: I read the manuscript through and take notes - mostly on the characters so I can get a sense of what sort of voices I’m going to use. This is where the author’s notes come in handy. It’s important I know what he or she had in mind. An hour or so of recording translates to about 20 minutes of ﬁnished audiobook. Then I submit the ﬁles and wait for the author to listen and come back with any additional changes. Hopefully, I’ve done my job well and there are not many. Robert J. Emery has had seven books published, four non-fiction under his name, and three novels under the pen name R. J. Eastwood (the last two self-published). Over his career he has written and directed eight features films and over 140 hour of television production before turning to writing novels fulltime.

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Review by Camilla Korth Millions of people experience death, loss, and grief every day. Children are a harshly affected yet overlooked group to experience these stressors. Laurie Copmann understands this concept and has written a book, titled The Family Tree: The Night of the Storm, which allows its readers to cope with loss through intricate metaphors and stunning illustrations. In The Family Tree: The Night of the Storm, a tree loses a beloved branch.

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The Family Tree: Coping with Loss Through Literature

A pair of loving hands and a young girl turn the lost branch into a swing. This metaphor has helped readers of all ages overcome despair and ﬁnd purpose in negative situations. Copmann believes the need for proper understanding and treatment increases as children, and even adults, process different types of loss. They must express the resulting grief, learn to live with the new circumstances, and ultimately, heal. People commonly think death is the harshest form of loss, but this is not always true, especially for children. Many are disrupted by stressors such as divorce, drug and alcohol abuse, imprisonment of family members, and placement in foster care. In an article, titled Children & Loss, written by Scholastic, a multinational book publisher and distributor, it states, “Unique neural systems change in response to the waxing and waning of relationships in our lives — forming a landscape created by the history of our emotional experiences.” 85

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The article goes on to say, in critical years of growth and development, the creation and destruction of relationships can cause lasting damage if not handled properly. Mental Health America has a webpage, titled Helping Children Cope with Loss, designed speciﬁcally to help people understand the ways children cope with grief. It says children express grief much differently than adults. These expressions can be anything from anxiety attacks, to loss of concentration, even withdrawal from play and social experiences. The study also proves it is important careful steps are taken to properly address and treat these expressions of grief. The effects of untreated grief can deter learning, growth, and mental health for years to come. Sherron Roberts and Patricia Crawford of the National Association for the Education of Young Children said in an article titled Real Life Calls for Real Books, “...literature stimulates children’s curiosity and encourages them to develop problem-solving skills to address challenging situations.”

The article also explained children are unique and must enjoy the lessons they are being taught in order to retain information. Laurie Copmann is an educator, mother, and an active member of her community. She earned a master’s degree in counseling. She is the principal of Rupert Elementary in Rupert, Idaho but has worked with children and teenagers of all ages. Laurie was inspired to write The Family Tree when her parents divorced after 35 years of marriage. “It was very unexpected. It was just odd, and I couldn’t move forward from it,” she said. This inspiration, backed by her years of experience, education, and communal participation, has supported and infused her story with powerful truths. She spent years writing, revising, and changing this book, never expecting it to become what it is today: an inspiration to those dealing with loss. Laurie began attending conferences across the country as her book continued to gain popularity. She was working with groups of children and adults, discussing adverse childhood experiences relating to grief. “Sometimes stories help children put things into perspective instead of just talking to them about the situation,” Laurie said. After publishing her book in 2016, Laurie received many reviews stating her book was inspiring readers to move on from varying losses, but one stood out from the rest.

She said, “We believe families are tied forever, but this gave such a tangible connection to Mary. Physically tying the swing to my motherin-law’s tree was like physically tying Mary to our family tree. It’s such a hard concept for kids to grasp.” Laurie’s intricate storyline, beautiful illustrations, and deep metaphors have created powerful resources for children and adults dealing with losses of all kinds. The Family Tree: The Night of the Storm has successfully helped children heal after experiencing loss. Books like Laurie’s help children ﬁnd solace.

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Bettie Stevenson, a mother of one of Laurie’s students, found The Family Tree: The Night of the Storm to be a huge help when her sisterin-law, Mary, was diagnosed with cancer and later lost her life. Both Bettie’s and Mary’s children have found understanding in Laurie’s book. Bettie said, “It captures those kids’ love and attention while I am being able to teach them concepts of grieving. It’s just really brilliant.” Bettie created swings like the one found in The Family Tree to remember Mary by.

As Bettie said, “We don’t know why some branches can’t weather the storm because sometimes...they just don’t.” Camilla Korth has a passion for literature and especially for writing. She is currently completing her bachelor’s degree in strategic organizational communications. She enjoys copywriting, non-profit work and public speaking. Camilla finds the inspirational power of the written and spoken word to be amazing. She is from small-town Idaho and loves the outdoors. More of her work can be found on her blog at https:// einenvironmentalis.wixsite.com/eine.

The Big Bang of a New Kind of Mystery

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Review by Holly Bell

Rewind, not to the beginning of the universe, but some 90 years, to a table in Torquay in the south-west of England. It is the late 1920s, and a landmark novel is in the making. The writer? Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie neĂŠ Miller. Christie was already building a reputation and a body of work that was to take her to the Guinness Book of Records holder today as the best-selling author of all time. Back then, 25 years after the publication of the book in question, she was to become the ďŹ rst to receive the Grand Master Award, the most prestigious accolade of the Mystery Writers of America. Born in 1890, by 1930 her Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, was already popular, but within those books, a couple of seeds had been planted: a certain name and a certain place. As a change from Poirot, in The Murder at the Vicarage, Christie switches the limelight from the sophisticated Poirot in his fashionable London apartment to the pastoral village of St Mary Mead. Miss Marple does

Reviews at the time were somewhat lukewarm, so great was the contrast with Poirot, but later in her career, Christie revisited Miss Marple as a relief from the fashionable mystery-solving Belgian who was getting on her nerves. Today, this ﬁrst Marple novel scores 4.05 on Goodreads with 120,000 ratings and 3,000 reviews, so she must have been doing something right! Why is this particular book such a star in the literary ﬁrmament? Arguably there are other authors that can be cited as rivalling this position, but it is generally agreed that Agatha Christie is the godmother, the mother and grande dame of the modern genre of the cosy mystery (or cozy in US spelling), with the creation of the highly perceptive, third-age spinster and English village resident, Jane Marple.

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not come storming onto the stage on the ﬁrst page. She is a character in the village who gradually emerges and almost solves the crime from the background. In later books, Miss Marple ﬁgures more prominently and dominantly.

With the blossoming of the creation of this sleuth beginning with The Murder at the Vicarage, Christie unwittingly set the benchmarks for the cosy mystery as we know it today. Fans of the genre may well wonder, how so? Miss Marple is not sassy, snarky or sexy. She had no pets and does not bake. She is neither a family person nor the hub of the community. However, it could be argued that those attributes are peripheral to the principal distinguishing marks of the cosy, which could be listed as: A whodunit puzzle A happy ending No graphic violence – the murder happens off-stage No explicit romantic intimacy No obscene language The tone is light There is humour, warmth, honour and common sense. The protagonist is (usually) female With some insider contact in the police force. So what happens in this book?

The obnoxious Colonel Protheroe is found dead as a doornail at the desk in the vicar’s study. Doctor Haydock diagnoses murder. The ﬁnger is pointed instantly and inevitably at the star-crossed but well-behaved lovers, artist Lawrence and the mistreated Mrs Protheroe. However, what about the strange Dr Stone, the archaeologist excavating Protheroe land? Could he and his so-called assistant, Miss Cram, have wanted the colonel six feet under? Is Lettice, the deceased’s daughter, held at her father ’s home only by his purse strings, as vague and absent-minded as she seems? The narrator, the Reverend Leonard Clement, has a watertight alibi, it would seem. His adored and delightfully unsuitable young wife, Griselda, was in London for the day, wasn’t she? Of course, bright young teenager, nephew Dennis was at a tennis party, and surely it was not the hopelessly inept maid, Mary!

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Suspicion casts its grim shadow upon the innocent and the guilty alike, in the lanes, cottages and houses of St Mary Mead. So far, the misleadingly named Inspector Slack is either secretly stumped or barking up the wrong tree. And the time that the study clock stopped simply doesn’t make sense.

Fortunately, Miss Marple, and, in the words of Miss Christie herself, ‘there is no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands’, is available, between gardening and making cherry brandy according to an old family recipe. Her ample wits, sheer common sense and vast experience of the vicissitudes of human nature are being brought to bear on the puzzle. In the end, only she can ensure that the guiltless are exonerated and the perpetrator brought to justice. Balance is restored, and, once more, at least for a time, all is well in the world of St Mary Mead and in ours. Since Agatha Christie’s passing into history 1976, during the 21st century, the seed she planted has spread to mysteries set in other villages in these North Atlantic Isles with, for example, Caroline Graham’s Chief Inspector Barnaby books, made into the immensely popular television series Midsomer Murders. It has found fertile soil across the Atlantic, recreated in the American small town and urban sprawl, around to the Antipodes where the

What would Agatha Christie say if she could see what she started? I think that she would be delighted that her creation has mushroomed into a genre that has brought, and continues to bring, glee, distraction, amusement, escape and comfort to millions of readers across the globe.

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Christie inspiration can be clearly seen in the charming Australian Miss Fisher Mysteries of Kerry Greenwood. It has been grafted onto new stock and blossomed into the healthy hybrid of the cosy paranormal mystery, the pet detective, ﬂavoured with fragrant warmth of baker’s kitchen, ranging from school age investigator to silver supersleuth.

The cosy does not aspire to be great literature. It is a Sunday afternoon pleasure or a too-sick-to-do-anything-else, wrapped in a blanket, by the fire or in a hot weather hammock, a plane or train ride, a diversion, distraction, or just pleasure of indulgence, a winding down before bed, a feeling of a safe bubble where, in the end, all is right with the world. No not be deceived, however, into imagining that this is a genre of fluffy chick-lit nonsense. These books can be as challenging to the intellect as the reader wishes, a Rubik cube of riddles can lie within. This genre is chock full of mysteries from the fertile brains of many a fine writer that will fox you to the finish line. You can simply watch the solution unfold, challenge yourself to guess or try to deduce the murderer before the dénouement. The writers come from a range of backgrounds both literary and otherwise. Some describing worlds familiar or fantastic. At the moment of Marple’s making, Christie herself was neither advanced in years nor a spinster. The year Murder at the Vicarage was published, she married her second husband and love of her life, the archaeologist Max Mallowan, with whom she would travel to exotic locations a far cry from the rural retreat of St 91

Mary Mead. Nevertheless, she drew on the countryside of her earlier life and the riches of her imagination, now bountifully conjured for your delectation. Want to watch The Big Bang of the Cosy Mystery Cosmos? If you please, ladies and gentlemen, step this way … to The Murder at The Vicarage.

Holly Bell is a writer, photographer and videographer. She is the author of The Amanda Cadabra Cozy Paranormal Mysteries published by Heypressto and available on Amazon. As a child, she found her first Agatha Christie in the family library and simply couldn’t get enough of them. Having read the entire canon at least three times, they have been a significant influence on Holly’s own writing, infused with the vintage quality of English village life of the1930,s as evoked by the doyenne of the cosy mystery, and the love of a well-crafted puzzle.

Spring Reading Magazine

Holly is an ardent cat and chocolate fan. ‘They both go so well with curling up with a book.’ Visit Holly at amandacadabra.com and find her on Facebook. Especially if you decide to sample an Agatha Christie and find yourself enjoying it or cosy paranormal mysteries in general, she would love to hear from you.

Spring Reading Magazine