Friday, April 28, 2017

Witch Cake Murders by Zoe Arden



Title: Witch Cake Murders
Author: Zoe Arden
Publisher: Independent
Pages: 330
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Witches and humans have always existed peacefully in Sweetland Cove... until now.

Someone is killing humans and drawing unwanted attention to the supernatural residents of Sweetland Cove.

Ava Rose just turned twenty-one, and with her birthday came a few surprises.
One: she's a witch.
Two: she's part owner of a magical bakery she never knew existed.
Three: Someone wants her dead.

The day Ava arrives in Sweetland Cove, murders begin occurring…
Witches and wizards are quick to blame her, but Ava's aunts won't let the town they love turn against her.

But murders follow Ava everywhere.

Soon, she finds herself on the receiving end of the killer's mad spree. With a crazy wizarding sheriff who wants to lock her up, and an even crazier wizarding detective who wants to lock her whole family up, Ava must solve this case alone.

But as the days pass and the only clues point to her, Ava starts to wonder if maybe the sheriff is right.

Maybe she really is the killer.

The only thing Ava knows for sure is that the witches of Sweetland are not happy with her. Especially those witches who have something to hide.
And they all have something to hide.

Can Ava stop the killer before they strike again... even if that killer is her?

Witch Cake Murders is available at Amazon.

Book Excerpt:
"Let me ask you something," Brendan said. "You're a witch. Why do witches like human men?" He was looking at me so earnestly I felt compelled to answer him. I just didn't know what to say.
"Um..." I stammered. "I don't know. I grew up around humans, so I guess I'm just drawn to them." I looked back through the glass patio door at Damon, who was dancing with Megan again. Brendan followed my gaze, looking miserable.
"Love sucks," he said, then shoved the purple stem he'd been twirling into his pocket and skulked off. I turned back to the stars and sighed.
An earth-shattering scream rose into the night, making me jump.
Through the patio door, I could see a crowd gathering around the perimeter of the room. A woman was screaming. I hurried inside. The crowd had opened up, leaving two people in its center.
Felicity stood there, her mouth hanging open. Campbell was dancing around her, his hands flying unnaturally through the air. His head was tilted at an odd angle and his tongue lolled out the side of his mouth, like a thirsty dog. He was making strange grunting noises that almost resembled words.
"He's drunk!" someone yelled.
Campbell swung his hips around and bumped into Felicity, who stumbled away from him.
"All right, all right, break it up," Felicity's boyfriend Lincoln said.
Lincoln was the sheriff of Mistmoor Point, and the crowded parted for him as he came through.  Even if he hadn't been a sheriff, I suspected the crowd would still have parted for him. At six feet tall with bronze hair and blue eyes, he made quite a figure in the middle of a crowd.
"Okay, Campbell. Time to go home," Lincoln said, clamping one hand down on his shoulder.
Campbell yanked Lincoln hard, sending him flying across the room. Everyone gasped. Campbell stopped, looked around, then let out a strange gurgling sound. He fell to the floor. His face was bright blue.
Felicity hunkered down next to him. She gave him one hard shake then looked up at the rest of the room, her mouth gaping.
"He's dead," she cried. "Campbell's dead!"
Who would be next?



Thursday, April 27, 2017

No More Magic Wands by George Finney



Title: NO MORE MAGIC WANDS
Author: George Finney
Publisher: Independent
Pages: 130
Genre: Business/Leadership/Management/Cybersecurity/Technology

Once upon a time there was a company that made magic wands, but when they were hacked all the magic in the world couldn’t prevent their data from being stolen. If that company had a chance for a clean start, what would they have done differently? The unlikely hero isn’t a security guy. She’s a business elf who makes it her mission to change the way her company does business from the top down.

Most books on Cybersecurity are written for highly technical professionals, focus on specific compliance regulations, or are intended for reference. No More Magic Wands is different...it takes complex security concepts and puts them into practice in easy to read, relateable stories.

No More Magic Wands is available at AMAZON


Book Excerpt:
Security is everyone’s job.
That’s what we say as security professionals. It’s not a copout. It’s not as if we’re trying to pass off our jobs on everyone else. It really does take everyone working in concert to make an organization truly secure. So why, then, do we do so little to enable those outside the cybersecurity field to do their part of the universal security job? We often provide some training, usually in the form of mandatory twenty-minute propaganda videos. But what about tools? Maybe we create a button to encrypt email data or to report phishing. What about books? Mostly we just provide a bunch of technical reference manuals, white papers, or standards written for the highly technical security professional. In them are policies that no one ever reads.
If security is everyone’s job, everyone needs to have the right tools to actually do the job. Not some of the tools. Not a little bit of the information. All of it.
In cybersecurity, all of us are on the frontlines of a complicated battle involving governments, organized crime, activists, and more which makes security being everyone’s job even more important. If that’s your goal, you must empower your employees to take initiative. They should be able to think for themselves. They should not have to ask for direction. If you constantly tell people exactly what to do and how to do it, they’ll never develop the ability to be self-directed. This is why cybersecurity should entail real-world, experienced-based training—not just awareness—to create a culture of ownership. Annual training should be progressive, and its lessons should build over several years. The company should provide real examples of cybersecurity issues in order to give the training efforts a specific direction and focus. If the training involves reading from a binder or sticking to a narrow script, what will happen when something off-script happens? Employees won’t know how to react and will have to ask for input from their supervisors.
If we improve our communal awareness of cybersecurity, we can start to develop a kind of collective immunity to cybercrime. Today, it is cheap and easy to be a cybercriminal: software isn’t difficult to hack, and people make even easier targets. This means the victims are plentiful, and the risks of getting caught or prosecuted are extremely low. However, if the cost of cybercrime increases and the chances of getting caught go up, the volume of cybercrime will be forced down (assuming cybercriminal’s ill-gotten profits remain the same).
There needs to be an ecosystem of participation in security so that salespeople, accountants, attorneys, bankers, doctors, librarians, barbers, and car salesmen can all communicate with one another about the types of cybercrime they’ve experienced: How they were hacked and what they did to improve their security measures. What technologies worked and which ones didn’t. Which common techniques hackers are employing today. Everyone should be able to look to the security community for leadership and find answers.
Great cybersecurity is possible, but it’s not easy.
Have you ever felt like someone was asking you to waive your magic wand at a problem and make it go away? You may have wanted to shout, “It’s not that easy!” This is what’s happening in cybersecurity. Waive your magic wand and everything will be better? Not in real life. If there really was a magic wand to be found, then thousands of companies wouldn’t become the victims of cybercriminals every year. Software could be made to run perfectly, business processes would be designed without loopholes, everyone would follow policy, and employees would be constantly vigilant. Cybersecurity would be a thing of the past.
This book imagines what life would be like for a magic-wand manufacturing company, staffed entirely by elves, after knockoff wands with their label start cropping up. On top of that, their customers’ private information gets leaked and becomes scattered all across the enchanted forest. But the elves still have one magic wand. Can they use it to fix the mess? Or will they have to think of something else—some other way to prevent the villains of the enchanted forest from going one step further and stealing their greatest treasure?
The unlikely hero isn’t a security guy. She’s a business elf who makes it her mission to change the way her company does business from the top down. One of the first things she does is build a coalition of partners inside and outside the business to help make those changes happen. She looks for other fairy-tale creatures who have had personal or professional experiences with cybercrime and who have taken to heart the hard lessons of being hacked. She considers weathering the trials of being hacked a badge of honor, not a failure on their part. She has to learn how to talk to other business creatures about security—and she has to do it in their language, not her own. On her quest, she must challenge people to change their ways before the next breach happens, which she does by simulating a hack on the company, thereby creating the learning experience of being breached without the negative consequences. In this new world, she learns that it needs to be okay for people to challenge authority, even when it might normally be considered rude. Without a culture of inquiry and vigilance, actual security will be out of reach. She realizes that, just like a healthy immune system, there needs to be multiple interconnected structures inside the organization to keep things working together.
This book isn’t written for technology professionals, although it may help them as well. It’s written for anyone and everyone who wants to make a difference and improve cybersecurity. The first lesson that students of cybersecurity learn about cybersecurity is that there’s a constantly evolving cycle of improvement. Although basic principles will remain the same, you must always grow and adapt to various threats as they emerge. You will never arrive at a state of perfect security.
No matter how good you are, you will be hacked at some point.
It may be a surprise to hear, but hackers are an important part of the security ecosystem. Hackers help the security ecosystem improve, particularly when they reveal the vulnerabilities they find or disclose the methods they used to expose weaknesses in a company’s security measures. Imagine a young infant: we don’t want the baby to get sick, but if she were never exposed to germs, her immune system wouldn’t properly develop and she could wind up being very weak and vulnerable later on in life. Without hackers, our cyber immune system wouldn’t develop and could be susceptible to worse cyber threats: attacks from government-sponsored actors, large-scale organized crime, or malicious inside jobs. Therefore, this book is for hackers too. Keep us honest. Make us better.

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Surgeon's Story by Mark Oristano



Title: SURGEON’S STORY
Author: Mark Oristano
Publisher: Authority Publishing
Pages: 190
Genre: Nonfiction Medical

What is it like to hold the beating heart of a two-day old child in your hand?  What is it like to counsel distraught parents as they make some of the most difficult decisions of their lives?

Noted pediatric heart surgeon Dr. Kristine Guleserian has opened up her OR, and her career, to author Mark Oristano to create Surgeon’s Story - Inside OR-6 With a top Pediatric Heart Surgeon. 

Dr. Guleserian’s life, training and work are discussed in detail, framed around the incredibly dramatic story of a heart transplant operation for a two-year old girl whose own heart was rapidly dying.  Author Mark Oristano takes readers inside the operating room to get a first-hand look at pediatric heart surgeries most doctors in America would never attempt.

That’s because Dr. Guleserian is recognized as one of the top pediatric heart surgeons in America, one of a very few who have performed a transplant on a one-week old baby. Dr. Guleserian (Goo-liss-AIR-ee-yan) provided her expertise, and Oristano furnished his writing skills, to produce A Surgeon’s Story.

As preparation to write this stirring book, Oristano spent hours inside the operating room at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas watching Guleserian perform actual surgeries that each day were life or death experiences. Readers will be with Dr. Guleserian on her rounds, meeting with parents, or in the Operating Room for a heart transplant.

Oristano is successful sportscaster and photographer and has made several appearances on stage as an actor. He wrote his first book A Sportscaster’s Guide to Watching Football: Decoding America’s Favorite Game, and continues to volunteer at Children’s Medical Center.

“We hear a lot about malpractice and failures in medical care,” says Oristanto, “but I want my readers to know that parts of the American health care system work brilliantly. And our health care system will work even better if more young women would enter science and medicine and experience the type of success Dr. Guleserian has attained.”
Readers will find all the drama, intensity, humor and compassion that they enjoy in their favorite fictionalized medical TV drama, but the actual accounts in Surgeon’s Story are even more compelling. One of the key characters in the book is 2-year-old Rylynn who was born with an often fatal disorder called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome and was successfully treated by Dr. Guleserian.

Watch the Book Trailer at YouTube.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble


Book Excerpt:
The first task is to examine the heart to see if the preoperative diagnosis is correct. Dr. G uses delicate instruments to retract portions of the tricuspid valve and examine the extent of the defect of the ventricular septum, the wall between the two ventricles. She determines the exact size and shape of the VSD and trims the segment of pericardium she saved earlier in preservative. She cuts miniscule pieces of the pericardial tissue and sutures them along the walls of the VSD, creating anchor points for the actual covering. Each suturing is an intricate dance of fingers and forceps, needle and thread. Dr. G works with a small, hooked needle, grasping it with forceps, inserting the needle through the tissue, releasing and re-gripping with the forceps, pulling the hair-thin suture through, using a forceps in her other hand to re-grip the needle again and repeat. The pericardial tissue being sewn over the VSD has to be secure, and it has to stand up to the pressure of blood pumping through Claudia’s heart at the end of the operation. This isn’t like repairing knee ligaments, which can rest without use and heal slowly. Claudia’s heart is going to restart at the end of this operation, and whatever has been sewn into it has to hold, and work, the first time. The VSD repair involves cautious work around the tricuspid valve, and their proximity is a concern because the valve opens and closes along the ventricular septum with each beat. Dr. G and her team find that it’s preferable to actually divide the cords of the tricuspid valve to better expose the VSD. After the patch is fully secured, the tricuspid valve is repaired.
        Things don’t go as smoothly during the attempt to repair the pulmonary valve. When Dr. G looks inside Claudia’s heart she discovers that the pulmonary valve is not nearly large enough, and it’s malformed. It only has two flaps where there should be three. She repairs it by what she later says is “just putting in a little transannular patch.”
        Here’s what it’s like to “just” put a transannular patch on the pulmonary artery of a child as small as Claudia:
        First, take a piece of well-cooked elbow macaroni. Tuck it away in a bowl of pasta that has a bit of residual marinara sauce still floating around in it. Take several different sized knitting needles. Slowly, without damaging the macaroni, insert one of the knitting needles into it to see if you can gauge the width of the macaroni on which you’re operating. Then using a delicate, incredibly sharp blade, cut a small hole in the piece of elbow macaroni, maybe a little larger than the height of one of the letters on the page in front of you. Now use pliers to pick up a small needle with thread as fine as human hair in it. Use another pliers to pick up a tiny piece of skin that looks like it was cut from an olive, so thin that light shines through it. Take the needle and sew the olive skin on to the hole you’ve cut in the piece of macaroni. When you’re finished sewing, hook up the piece of macaroni to a comparable size tube coming from the faucet on the kitchen sink, and see if you can run some water through the macaroni without the patch leaking.
        That’s the food analogy. Those are the dimensions Dr. G worked with as she patched Claudia’s pulmonary artery. She made it a little wider to give it a chance to work more efficiently, to transport more blood with less blockage, requiring less work for the right ventricle so that the built-up heart muscle could return to a more normal size. It wasn’t the repair she’d planned to make, but it was the most suitable under the circumstances, and it gave Claudia her best chance.
        Before restoring Claudia’s natural circulation, the team makes certain that no air is in the heart or the tubes from the pump, because it could be pumped up to the brain. Air in the brain is not a safe thing. When all the repairs are completed, Claudia is rewarmed and weaned from the bypass machine. She was on pump for 114 minutes and her aorta was clamped for 77 minutes, not an extraordinary length of time in either case.
        Claudia’s heart starts up on its own, with a strong rhythm. With her heart beating again the beeps, and the peaks and valleys on her monitor return. All is well. An echo technician wheels a portable machine into the OR and puts a sensor down Claudia’s throat where it lodges behind her heart to perform a transesophageal echo —a more detailed view than the normal, external echo. Everything looks good. Chest  drains are put in to handle post-operative drainage, and wires are placed for external pacemakers, should anything go wrong with Claudia’s heart rhythm during her recovery from surgery. Dr. G draws Claudia’s ribcage back together with stainless steel wires, perfectly fastened and tightly tucked down.
        Claudia and the surgical team return to the CVICU, and Dr. G monitors her reentry to the unit, making sure the nurses understand Claudia’s condition and the proper procedures to be followed for the next 24 hours. From there, Dr. G enters a small room tucked away from the noise of the unit to meet with the family. Claudia’s mother, father, and aunt are waiting. Dr. G sees Mom wiping tears away.
        “Are you crying? Oh, no, no need to be crying, everything is fine.” Her wide smile reassured Mom, who  put away her tissues.

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Playing with Fire by R.J. Blain



Title: PLAYING WITH FIRE
Author: R.J. Blain
Publisher: Pen & Page Publishing
Pages: 323
Genre: Fantasy/Romantic Comedy

Warning: This novel contains excessive humor, action, excitement, adventure, magic, romance, and bodies. Proceed with caution.

What do you get when you mix gorgons, an incubus, and the Calamity Queen? Trouble, and lots of it.

Working as the only human barista at a coffee shop catering to the magical is a tough gig on a good day. Bailey Gardener has few options. She can either keep spiking drinks with pixie dust to keep the locals happy, or spend the rest of her life cleaning up the world’s nastiest magical substances.

Unfortunately for her, Faery Fortunes is located in the heart of
Manhattan Island, not far from where Police Chief Samuel Quinn works. If she’d been smart, she never would have agreed to help the man find his wife.

Bailey found her, all right—in the absolutely worst way possible.

One divorce and several years later, Bailey is once again entangled in Chief Quinn’s personal affairs, and he has good reason to hate her. Without her, he wouldn’t be
Manhattan’s Most Wanted Bachelor, something he loathes. Without her, he’d still be married.

If only she’d said no when he asked her help, she might have had a chance with him. While her magic worked well, it came with a price: misfortune. Hers.

When Quinn’s former brother-in-law comes to her for help, he leaves her with a cell phone and seventy-five thousand reasons to put her magic to the test. However, when she discovers Quinn’s ex-wife is angling for revenge, Bailey’s tossed in the deep end along with her sexiest enemy.

Playing With Fire is available at Amazon.

Book Excerpt:
No one in their right mind would ever license me as a private investigator, but that didn't stop people from coming to me when they needed something found. Fortunately, I liked my job as the only human barista at Faery Fortunes Coffee and Book Shop. Most came for a cup of joe and left too buzzed to read a thing, but who was I to complain? People paid top dollar for their pixie dust infused latte, and they tipped me well not to judge them.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t so fond of Chief Quinn. When he walked through the door, bad things usually happened to someone—me. For him to come in five minutes after opening, long before the sun even thought about rising, he needed something, and it wasn’t a cup of coffee. Why couldn’t he want coffee? I could deal with making him a drink, and I’d double his dose of pixie dust to keep him happy.
I gave the espresso machine a defiant swipe of my cleaning cloth before stepping to the counter to deal with Manhattan’s Most Wanted Bachelor. Without my help, he’d still be married, too.
What a way to start the day.
And to think people wondered why I refused to help find anything for anyone anymore. The reason stood across the counter from me. Chief Samuel Quinn, aged thirty, hotter than sin, and my heaven and hell rolled together in one smoking tall, dark, and handsome package, hated me for good reason. It was his fault, too. He had been the one to ask me for help finding his wife. I had found her all right, right in the middle of teaching a college stud the nuances of the reverse cowgirl.
If no one asked me to find something or someone again for the rest of my life, I’d be a very happy woman.
“Chief Quinn, what a pleasant surprise,” I lied. “Can I get you something? A dark roast, cream, no sugar, light on the dust?”
Why couldn’t I have been blessed with forgetfulness? I knew my worst nightmare’s favorite drink, and I had to make it for him first thing in the morning. Of course I knew it. He came in at least three times a week to torment me. Screw it. Who was I kidding? Instead of the coffee, he could take me instead. If I had to put up with the hassle of dealing with him, why couldn’t I enjoy it, too?
“Cream, no dust, and make it a large, Bailey.”
Alarm bells tinkled in my head. Since when did Chief Quinn address me by my first name? On a good day, he snapped my last name like he worried it would contaminate him. “Of course, sir.”
The faster I made his coffee, the sooner he’d go away. I’d love every second I spent watching him go. In less than a minute, I had his drink ready, and to lower the risk of him spending any extra time with me, I chirped, “It’s on me today, Chief Quinn. Have yourself a nice morning.”
If it meant we parted without incident, it’d be well worth the five bucks.
He saluted me with his cup, flashed a hint of a smile, and walked out the door. Facing him was hell, but I glimpsed the heavens when he left, and if my panties hadn’t caught on fire under my jeans, I’d be very, very surprised.
“You’re drooling, Gardener,” my boss squeaked. The moth fairy, with just enough pixie heritage to dust glitter when she wanted, fluttered over my shoulder, her tiny arms crossed over her chest. “Reverse cowgirl.”
“Stop reminding me!” I wailed, slumping over the counter. “He hates me. Worse, all I think about when he struts in is taking off my clothes and giving him my panties. I think they caught on fire this time, Mary. Why couldn’t he have had one of his cops find his wife instead?”
“You just want to indulge in some guilt-free fantasizing like every other hot-blooded American woman in the city.”
“Exactly. This is why no one in their right mind asks me for help. I ruin everything.”
“Except my coffee, which is a miracle. Now that we’ve had our daily dose of excitement, can you handle the shop on your own for an hour? We’ll call it even on the coffee.”
Was she serious? Alone for an hour on a Monday morning forty minutes before rush hour? If she thought I’d be all right alone, she was completely cracked. I could already hear her if I dared to complain about my shift. What could possibly go wrong in an hour? Didn’t I like my job? The list went on and on and on. I smiled so I wouldn’t cry. “Sure, Mary. I can last an hour.”
“You’ve gotten better at lying. Your smile didn’t even slip that time. Try not to die while I’m gone. Good humans are so hard to find.” Mary zipped out of the shop through the pixie door and dove through the window of an idling sports car.
Wait.
Sports car? Red, convertible, top up despite the nice summer morning? I leaned over the counter and squinted. Yep. My boss had just ditched me for a ride in Chief Quinn’s car. Sometimes life really wasn’t fair.

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

PUYB Virtual Book Club Chats with 'Chasing Hindy' Darin Gibby



In addition to a thriving career as a novelist, author Darin Gibby is also one of the country’s premiere patent attorneys and a partner at the prestigious firm of Kilpatrick Townsend (www.kilpatricktownsend.com). With over twenty years of experience in obtaining patents on hundreds of inventions from the latest drug delivery systems to life-saving cardiac equipment, he has built IP portfolios for numerous Fortune 500 companies. In addition to securing patents, Gibby helps clients enforce and license their patents around the world, and he has monetized patents on a range of products.

Darin’s first book, Why Has America Stopped Inventing?, explored the critical issue of America’s broken patent system.  His second book, The Vintage Club, tells the story of a group of the world’s wealthiest men who are chasing a legend about a wine that can make you live forever. His third book, Gil, is about a high school coach who discovers that he can pitch with deadly speed and is given an offer to play with the Rockies during a player’s strike. Gil soon discovers, however, that his unexpected gift is the result of a rare disease, and continuing to pitch may hasten his own death.
With a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering and a Master of Business Administration degree, he is highly regarded in Denver’s legal and business community as a patent strategist, business manager, and community leader. He is also a sought-after speaker on IP issues at businesses, colleges and technology forums, where he demonstrates the value of patents using simple lessons from working on products such as Crocs shoes, Izzo golf straps and Trek bicycles.
An avid traveler and accomplished triathlete, Darin also enjoys back country fly-fishing trips and skiing in the Rocky Mountains. He lives in Denver with his wife, Robin, and their four children.

His latest book is the thriller, Chasing Hindy.

WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:

WEBSITE | TWITTER | FACEBOOK



About the Book:

ADDY’S DREAM AS a patent attorney is to help bring a ground breaking energy technology to the
world. Addy’s hopes soar when she is wooed by Quinn, an entrepreneur, to join his company that has purportedly invented a car that can run on water using an innovative catalyst. After resigning her partnership to join Quinn, Addy discovers things aren’t as they seem. The patent office suppresses the company’s patent applications and her life is threatened by unknown assailants if she doesn’t resign.

When she is arrested for stealing US technology from the patent office she realizes Quinn has used her. Now, Addy must find a way to clear her name while salvaging her dream of propelling this technology to the world, all while powerful forces attempt to stop her.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble


Before you started writing your book, what kind of research did you do to prepare yourself?

Chasing Hindy revolves around a technology that allows cars to run on water. As such, I did considerable research on hydrogen fuel cells and what it would take to efficiently extract hydrogen from water.  As a patent attorney, I already knew how fuel cells work, but making the story what really could be reality took a lot of digging and speaking with a lot of people having a PhD title.

Did you pursue publishers or did you opt to self-pub?

I chose to go with Koehler Books, an independent publisher.

If published by a publisher, what was your deciding factor in going with them?

Koehler books published my last two books, The Vintage Club and Gil, and we’ve had a great working relationship.  As such, I decided to use them for Chasing Hindy as well.

If published by a publisher, are you happy with the price they chose?

Koehler Books is pretty savvy about what price will drive the most sales.  And, every now and then I will run a promotion and they’ll let me drop the price for a few days which is nice as well.

Did you purposefully choose a distinct month to release your book?  Why?

Not for this book, but I have in the past.  For example, Gil is a baseball book and we rushed to get it published for the World Series. And, we got lucky because it went seven games and was probably the most exciting series ever.  Sales soared!

How did you choose your cover?

Koehler Books has a program where they generate about 5 covers based on your input.  Then you narrow it down to your top two.  From there, they post it on their website and let the public vote.  The one we ended up with shows a ripple created by a drop of water.  The water is changing to gold, symbolizing the dream that everyone is chasing.

Did you write your book, then revise or revise as you went?

I write the entire book and then revise.  But for this book, I wrote the book at least 5 times and threw 4 of them in the garbage.  I could never get a character I liked until I came up with Addy.

Did you come up with special swag for your book and how are you using it to help get the word out about your book? 

Not yet, but I’m thinking about it.

Did you consider making or hiring someone to make a book trailer for your book?  If so, what’s the link?

I did a trailer for The Vintage Club, but I learned that there are better ways to spend a marketing budget. As such, I haven’t used one since.

What’s your opinion on giving your book away to sell other copies of your book?
I think it is a great idea, but Koehler Books has a different perspective.  I recently did a freebie for my first book and it was a  huge success.  I’d do it for every book if I could.

What are three of the most important things you believe an author should do before their book is released?

1. Get great endorsements
2. Have a sharp website
3. Update all your social media sites

What are three of the most important things you believe an author should do after their book is released?

1. Talk to everyone about your book.
2. Spread the word using social media
3. Run promotions

What kind of pre-promotion did you do before the book came out? 

For Chasing Hindy, I’m doing announcements on social media, getting reviews, doing a blog tour, setting up promotions and giveaways and telling everyone I can think of.

Do you have a long term plan with your book?

I would love to have it turned into a movie.

What would you like to say to your readers and fans about your book?

If you like fast paced thrillers with strong characters, you’ll love this book. When you get finished, you may actually believe that someday we may all be driving cars fueled with water.




Monday, April 3, 2017

PUYB Virtual Book Club Presents Storm Winds Book Blast! #bookblast @ksdavidromance


We welcome K.S. David and her STORM WINDS Book Blast today! Please leave a comment to let her know you stopped by!


Title: STORM WINDS: AN OUTER BANKS MYSTERY
Author: K.S. David
Publisher: Independent
Pages: 180
Genre: Romantic Suspense

Moving to the North Carolina Outer Banks was a chance for Leah Kymes to put her life back together, after her marriage went sour. But peace and quiet evade her, when her father is discovered murdered in his fish and tackle shop. Not willing to wait for authorities to solve the crime, she begins to delve into recent events involving her Dad. What she uncovers shatters her understanding of the man she thought she knew so well. 

At Leah's side is her old flame, Officer Aden Parker, who runs interference between Leah and the salty detective who sees her as a hindrance. Ignoring Aden's warnings, she deepens her probe, but soon draws the attention of a handsome stranger. Is this new man just competing for her affection - or a vicious killer intent on making Leah his next victim? 

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Amazon


Book Excerpt:


Perched on top of a sand dune, Leah looked across the ocean as waves curled and crashed against the shore. Behind her, stalled traffic lined North Carolina's Highway 12, six miles deep. Residents of the Outer Banks fled their homes days earlier as the dark clouds of a Category 3 hurricane raced toward them. Now they were headed back to whatever the storm had left behind.
Leah's father, Rex, had ignored the warnings. "I ain't scared of no damned storm," he'd said. "It's the price we pay for living in paradise, honey."
Rex had been born and bred on the North Carolina coast. He was sun-tough, with seawater for blood. An average-sized man with a shock of white hair, a face lined by hard living, and eyes as blue and alert as a clear summer sky, he feared no man, and believed destiny was his to write. She believed that he was invincible when she was a child. She knew better now. After a week without a word from him, Leah's frustration was speeding toward fear.
She dug her toes beneath the warm sand, ran her hands through her thick auburn hair, and twisted it into a bun. She'd spent nearly four days huddled in a hotel room, watching hours of new reports as the storm tracked toward the Outer Banks. Afterward, she searched photos of the destruction, straining to see if the home she shared with Rex and their businesses had been spared.
Leah picked up her cell phone and tapped the photo of her father. Since the storm hit, communication had been spotty to the Outer Banks. Like all the times before, her call went straight to Rex's voice mail. Instead of leaving another agitated message, she ended the call, picked up a stick, and jammed it into the sand.
She was irritated. If she knew him well, and she did, her father hadn't thought once about the worry he caused. The old cuss was probably fine, but it was strange that he hadn't called to check on her, not even once. When her mind pondered over that loose detail, she pushed it to the furthest spot in her brain.
The blare of horns signaled that it was time to move. She skidded down the dune that hugged the road. Course granules of sand shifted underfoot as she descended. Heat pressed against her bare feet as she fished her keys out of the pocket of her cutoff shorts. Gaps in the line had been created by drivers who'd already moved forward and the woman parked behind Leah laid on her horn and growled, "We're trying to get home today, please!"
Leah sighed, grit her teeth, and gave a quick wave. "Sorry." Beneath her breath, she mumbled, "Go to hell." They were all in the same predicament and moving a few feet forward wasn't going to get either of them on the ferry any faster. She'd been in line for nearly two hours on the southern tip of Ocracoke Island. It would take another hour before she reached the pier for a forty-minute boat ride before landing on Hatteras Island, then another fifteen before she got to her father's house in the town of Frisco.
A hand tapped her on the shoulder. "Excuse me, ma'am. Are you Ms. Leah Kymes?"
A Hyde County police officer stared down at her. Sometimes, cops issued tickets to drivers who walked away from their cars when they were in the line for the ferry, especially at times like this. A ticket was the last thing she needed.
"I'm getting ready to pull up. We've been sitting here--"
The cop threw a hand up to stop her. "It's okay." He stepped closer and asked again, "Are you Leah Kymes?"
She frowned and looked down the line of cars. Eying him, she answered, "Yeah, I'm Leah Kymes."
"I'm Officer Alfred Hawkins. The Dare County Police Department requested that we locate and help you back over to Hatteras."
She stepped back. "Why?"
He shrugged, "Don't know. I was just told to find you."
"Is this about my father?" Her stomach turned at the thought that something bad had happened.
Hawkins held up a hand, "Ma'am, I don't know." He was a tall man, with smooth dark brown skin and an open face. "I was asked to get you back over to the island."
She looked at the backed-up traffic. There were still six miles to go before getting to the landing.
As if reading her mind, Officer Hawkins added, "I can take you back on one of the guard boats. Your car won't fit but another officer will get it on the next ferry."
At first, only a few drivers showed any interest when Hawkins first appeared beside Leah, but radios quieted and chatter ebbed when a second cruiser pulled alongside them and deposited another cop. Hawkins called over his shoulder to a female officer, "Direct the rest of the cars around us."
This officer was young. She'd chopped her brown hair into a pageboy and appeared to be losing the battle against acne. Giving Leah a quick, dismissive glance, she turned and waved the other cars along.
The woman who'd shouted at Leah earlier eased by slowly, but kept her curious gaze locked on the action.
"You sure you don't know anything?" Leah asked, searching Hawken's face.
"No," he said. Dark shades covered his eyes. Leah couldn't read his face but there was something in the brevity of his reply that worried her. Before she could question him any further, he said, "That's Officer Maynard." He pointed to the woman directing traffic. "She'll drive your car to the ferry. Someone on the other side will make sure it gets to Hatteras."
Maynard didn't look old enough to drive, and Leah didn't like the idea of leaving her car in someone else's hands, but what choice did she have. The line wasn't getting any shorter and she needed answers. Eyeing Hawkins again, she worried that he was being evasive. Cops never tell the whole story until they're ready. She opened the car door, pulled out her shoes and handbag, and tossed her keys on the seat. "Okay, I'm ready," she said to Hawkins.
He raced them along the shoulder of the highway, past the line of cars waiting for the next ferry. He parked against the edge of a sand dune and then escorted Leah to a small, white police boat. "We'll ride over together," he said.
He separated from her as soon as they hit the boat's deck and nudged himself into a corner with four other cops. Leah sat alone on a small portside bench and watched them watching her. They kept their voices low and, every so often, shot skimming glances in her direction. Hawkins had been sent to find her--to look specifically for Leah Kymes. There were thousands of people trying to get back on the island and every resource was tied up in the restoration effort, yet some official had seen fit to use Hawkins and a police boat to fetch her. Why?
After a moment, she stood and turned away from the cops. Leaning against the rails, she closed her eyes, pushed her face into the wind, and tried to concentrate on the roar of the boat's engine, the swish of the wake created as they cut through the waves, the call of the seagulls sailing overhead, anything but the sound of doubt coming from deep inside her own chest.
She had tried not to get anxious over the twenty-four-hour media coverage. She left the hotel room as often as she could, sped through several novels, caught up on emails, and even allowed herself the luxury of uninhibited sleep. None of it managed to shake loose a growing sense of foreboding. Something bad must have happened to Rex, a thought that drove her to file a missing person's report. Her father would be furious with her for doubting him. There was, of course, another issue. Rex loathed the police, a fact that made Leah pause each time she started dialing the emergency hotline. There were some cops he'd warmed to over the years but, as far as he was concerned, most could pucker up and kiss his crotchety old ass.
On Hatteras Island, Officer Hawkins walked her to a squat, yellow building known as the Inlet. Hugging the tip of the pier, the Inlet served as a visitor's center. A balmy wind pushed three blue signs that advertised snacks, restrooms, and ferryboat information. Across the lot was Hatteras Landing, where a collection of tourist shops and eateries were housed in a blistering white stucco building. It was usually overrun with tourists this time of year but stood empty because of the storm.
Rex had to be okay, she thought. Then, like an erratic wind, her mind shifted, and the voice in her head would shout, they don't send police escorts for a simple missing person's report, or do they? Maybe it was because Rex was elderly and kind of like a town fixture. If he were the only citizen unaccounted for, the officials wouldn't hesitate to put more effort into finding him.
Perhaps they had located Rex, but he'd been injured. The storm had been a whopper. It had raged against the coast for nearly eight hours. News reports showed cars and debris thrown all over the place, and homes and buildings had been torn apart like toys. A crack had appeared in Highway 12, severing lower Hatteras from the northern shores.
Immersed in her thoughts, she almost plowed into a man standing at the top of the ramp. She started her apology without even bothering to look up then began to move around the figure when a hand closed around the top of her arm.
"Lee?"
She raised her eyes to study the face of the man that had used her name. He was a head taller with soft brown eyes and tanned skin. A faint scar zigzagged from his bottom lip and disappeared beneath his chin. She'd given him that scar, slamming her Hello Kitty lunch box into his face after he'd popped the head off her Cabbage Patch doll.
"Aiden?" she replied. Then, more confident, she gushed, "Aiden Parker!"
She hadn't seen him since she was eighteen. A thousand questions popped into her head, as she considered his ruggedly handsome face. Was he married? Was he back in the Outer Banks? How was his family? Did he have kids?
Her mouth had started to quiver out the first question when Officer Hawkins moved past her, and like a pendulum swinging, her thoughts immediately shifted back to Rex. "I know this sounds rude, but I'll have to catch up with you later. I have an emergency right now. Maybe we can exchange information or something," she mumbled, already heading away.
"I know," he said, taking the crook of her arm again, to stop her.
She cocked her head. "You know what?"
"I'm a cop with the Dare County Police Department, and I know you made a call about Rex."
She narrowed her eyes and stared into his face for a moment. Like Hawkins, his expression was flat. "Where is he?"
"Come inside so we can talk," he said.
"Where's my father?" she insisted, determined not to move from that spot until she got an answer.
"Come on," Aiden said. He placed his hand on her shoulder and urged her up the last few feet of the ramp. They crossed the store and walked down the hallway past a set of restrooms. He opened a thick door with a sign, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. The building also housed offices for the Park Service and the North Carolina Department of Transportation, which operated the ferry service. Three uniformed officers chatted beside a bank of windows. Their conversation halted then picked up again in hushed tones.
Aiden pointed her to a conference room. "We can talk in here."
A large man with flaccid jowls and a rumpled brown suit stood at a window overlooking the sound.
"This is Detective Eric Lawson," Aiden said.
"Where's my dad?" Leah asked. This time, she didn't try to hide her irritation. Fear crawled up her spine, and she bound her prickly arms around her belly, as the big man turned to greet her.
Lawson pointed Leah to a seat at the table. "Let's talk for a moment."
She pulled back one of the chairs, barely noticing when the leg scraped against her foot. Lawson lowered his considerable frame into a seat opposite her, while Aiden replaced him at the window. Her leg shook and the sound of her flip-flops slapping against the sole of her foot broke the uneasy quiet in the room. Lawson leaned in and smiled but, despite the wide, toothy grin, Leah felt no warmth coming from the man. She recoiled, slight uncomfortable under the unyielding glare of his cold, gray eyes.
"I have a few questions," he said, "if you don't mind." He didn't wait for her to agree. "When was the last time you saw your father?"
She rubbed her hands together. "Um, the day before the storm. Why?"
He scribbled her response on a short, wire-rimmed notepad. "Home, or at his store?"
"At the house. He refused to leave, but wanted me to go."
"Was he planning to ride out the storm at the house?"
"I don't mean to be rude, but you gotta give me something." She tugged her hair out of the bun, twisted it tighter, and reset the scrunchie. "Is my father still missing?" Her head was spinning and all the horrid images of what that could mean rushed through her brain. She pressed the back of her hand to her upper lip, blotting away a light sheen of sweat. Despite the hum of the air conditioner and the bank of windows that stretched the entire length of the room, the space felt small and stifling. She asked again, "Is he still missing?"
Lawson pursed his lips. "No. He's not missing."
She let her head fall back and whispered a quiet prayer. "Thank, God." But her elation turned midstride as another wave of terror struck. "Is he okay?"
Rex wasn't a young man. That had been the point of their argument. Riding out a murderous storm was dangerous, but for a sixty-nine-year-old man, it was akin to lunacy.
Aiden turned from the window and slipped into the chair beside her. He grabbed the seat's edge and scooted closer. His face was hard and serious, but softened when he took her hands. "Leah, there's no easy way to say this." He stopped to swallow, the sound loud enough for her to hear. "Your father is dead."
She tilted her head and stared at him in disbelief. Her mind a blur, Leah struggled to process what he said. The air grew thinner, and she snatched her hands away from Aiden, held them in mid-air, then turned her gaze to Lawson, as if seeking confirmation.
He nodded. "He's dead, Ms. Kymes."
A long, sorrowful moan lifted from her chest, and Leah leaned forward, pressing hands to her eyes, as if trying to hold back the flood of tears. She turned suddenly to Aiden. "How?" she asked. "How?"
He inched closer, his knees pressing into hers. "Lee," which was the name he'd given her when they were children, "I need you to listen to me." The next words sliced into her like a knife. "Lee, your dad was murdered. Somebody shot him."




About the Author

K. S. David lives in the Mid-Atlantic with her husband, their three children and a spoiled sheepadoodle. She’s addicted to true life mysteries and crime shows, both of which marry well with a great romance. Some of her favorite things are long walks, reading in bed, baking and, of course, writing her next novel.

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