⭐PUYB Virtual Book Club⭐

Sunday, October 4, 2020

{Pump Up Your Book} Our Friendship Matters Virtual Book Trailer Blitz @kimberleybjones #booktrailer #booktrailerblitz

OUR FRIENDSHIP MATTERS
Kimberley B. Jones
Rhetoric Askew Publishing, LLC
YA

Two teenage friends, Sasha and Leah, live a comfortable life in the affluent St. Louis suburbs. They attend a well-established private Christian academy and the only thing on their mind as they enter their senior year is graduation and their senior prom. When tragedy strikes, however, the best friends are torn apart because of social tensions, ignorance, miscommunications, and fear.

Our Friendship Matters reveals a fictional story mirroring real-life cultural tensions and racial injustice – a young black boy, Mitchell, is mistaken for someone else and tragically killed by police. Tensions rise among the community, citizens are angry. One night, while Sasha is out, she sees her old childhood friend protesting the death of Mitchell. Curious about him and wondering if there is anything, she could do to become involved, Sasha talks to her friends about it. Sasha’s white friends are not interested in getting involved and her parents forbid her from taking part. Sasha’s makes a momentous decision to go against all the advice she is given and joins her old friends in protest. The fight for justice in Mitchell’s name causes a rift in her relationships.

An argument with Leah drives a wedge between them and leads Leah to take the opposite viewpoint, taking sides with those who are supporting different viewpoints, while Sasha’s boyfriend is jealous of the time she is spending with her old friends, he breaks off their relationship. The girlfriends, one black and one white, are unaware of an escalating war between the groups they support, and chaos and fear continue—lines are drawn and sides are chosen.

Our Friendship Matters is a beautifully thoughtful coming-of-age story about two friends who are forced to take a deeper look at their culture through different angles. The easy-to-read story is full of drama, well-rounded characters and a positive narrative that will engage readers of all ages

As I pulled up into Ricardo’s driveway, Victoria and two other girls who attended Eastview were standing there holding signs that said, “Justice for Mitchell.” I was sweating more than ever. Scared of both the police and the girls I didn’t even know who were going to be getting into my car.

“I didn’t know you were doing signs. I would’ve made me one.”

Ricardo and some guys were busy placing things in the car's trunk.

“Are you okay? The time is now,” said Ricardo.

“I’m ready but a little nervous, too.”

“You shouldn’t be nervous. All we are going to do is go downtown and making a statement that we want justice. Once we are done, we’ll come back home. I won’t let anything happen to you but, if something breaks out, I need you to look for Victoria and get in your car and go home. And if something happens to me, I need you to look for Victoria then go to my house and warn my peeps.”

As the girls got into my car, Victoria told me I could march, and chant the same thing they were planning on saying.

I was missing Leah. This could have been a positive moment that we could’ve shared together. I was still hoping she would come to her senses and realize that our fight from our disagreement was all crazy.

We arrived downtown, and I parked in the garage.

“Why didn’t you park on the streets?” Victoria said.

“My parents always told me to park in the garage so nothing would happen to my car.”

She laughed at me and said, “Well, you are driving a Mercedes. I would do the same if I had an expensive car.”

Amazon → https://amzn.to/2RKybNF

Kimberley B. Jones is a small country girl from St. George, SC. She followed her heart in college writing children books. Recently she decided to challenge herself and branch off to novels. She is your typical nomad who moves from place to place. Not by choice, but her husband serves in the military. She has a bachelors and masters in early childhood education. Kimberley is represented by Rhetaskew Publishing company and is best known for her debut novel, Our Friendship Matters. When she is not writing, she is either thinking of another topic or reading. She loves writing, it gives her a chance to escape into another human character and express herself, other than being your typical mother and wife. If you don’t want to be on her bad side, then she needs her white chocolate mocha every morning. Some days Folgers breakfast blend coffee is okay.

Website: www.kimberleybjones.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KimberleyBJones

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kimberley.jones.3762584

Pump Up Your Book Virtual Book Tour Kick Off: MY LIONS' DEN by E.M. Power #nonfiction #autobiographical #Christian

MY LIONS DEN
E.M. Power
Spotlight on Souls Publishing Group
Nonfiction / Autobiographical / Religious

This is my personal story of my trial with Domestic Abuse. This book was not intended to sensationalize Domestic Abuse. It is not to portray my abuser in a bad light or as an enemy. Abuse has no prejudices. Abuse may occur no matter a person’s religion, non-religion, race, economic income level, profession, culture, gender, or age. Abuse may happen at any time and to anyone. Yes, that means you too. If you think you would never be the victim of abuse, you risk being gravely mistaken (pun intended). Domestic Abuse may take place within any relationship type. There is no formula, medicine, vaccine, proven theory, amount of therapy, answer or cure. The abuser is not always someone that had ever been a victim themselves. The abuser is not always someone that has witnessed violence or abuse. By sharing my personal story, I hope to give you a better understanding of abuse in order to prevent this life trial to be your story too.

Amazon → https://amzn.to/31OZXhA

This is my personal story of my trial with Domestic Abuse. This book was not intended to sensationalize Domestic Abuse. It is not to portray my abuser in a bad light or as an enemy. Abuse has no prejudices. Abuse may occur no matter a person’s religion, non-religion, race, economic income level, profession, culture, gender, or age. Abuse may happen at any time and to anyone. Yes, that means you too. If you think you would never be the victim of abuse, you risk being gravely mistaken (pun intended). Domestic Abuse may take place within any relationship type. There is no formula, medicine, vaccine, proven theory, amount of therapy, answer or cure. The abuser is not always someone that had ever been a victim themselves. The abuser is not always someone that has witnessed violence or abuse. By sharing my personal story, I hope to give you a better understanding of abuse in order to prevent this life trial to be your story too.

E. M. (Eva Marie) Power, was born and lived for the first nine-years of her life on the Island of Guam. She was adopted at birth and raised by a single Guamanian woman, Alfonsina Manyanona Duenas from the Southern Village of Talofofo, Guam. E. M. (Eva Marie) Power moved stateside to Southern California at the age of nine and it is where she currently resides. She is the mother of six children and the grandmother of four. Just like she describes in this book, if ever in a Lions’ Den (life trial) she will always choose Faith!

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/evalitamarie

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https://www.instagram.com/authorempower/?hl=en

{Pump Up Your Book} Virtual Book Tour Kick Off @mike54martin #mystery

A PERFECT STORM

Mike Martin
Mystery

Sgt. Windflower is back, untangling another swirling mystery, this one bringing the meth crisis and biker gangs to the quiet Newfoundland town of Grand Bank, feeling the sting of their deadly tentacles reaching all the way from Las Vegas. He’s working with his familiar crew of RCMP characters – but wait, are some of the faces changing? New challenges for Jones, an unknown side of Smithson reveals itself, and what ever happened to Tizzard? In the midst of putting the pieces of the puzzle together, Windflower and his beloved Sheila also find themselves navigating sorrows and surprises on the family front.

Come back to Grand Bank for more fun, food and cool, clean, Canadian crime fiction with Sgt. Windflower Mysteries.

Amazon → https://amzn.to/36sHEBz

Chapter One

Eddie Tizzard passed his card over the sensor and pushed the door open. He flicked on the light. “Holy jumpins,” he said when he saw what was on the bed in his hotel room— thousands of dollars strewn around like confetti. When he looked closer, he saw something else. There, right in the middle of the bed, was a very red, very large bloodstain.

His first instinct was to run. But his years as an RCMP officer got the best of him, and he had another look around. Soon the source of the blood became obvious. It was a man in a suit lying face down in the bathroom with a visible hole in the back of his head. Tizzard should have trusted his first instinct because when he did decide to leave the room, he walked directly into the path of who he would later find out was the head of hotel security.

He was remembering all of this as he sat in a holding cell with a dozen other men in the Las Vegas jail. Tizzard had gone to Vegas for private detective training, having decided on a new career path after leaving the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or the Mounties. Technically, he was on leave for the rest of the year, but he doubted he’d ever return to his old job. He’d applied for and received his firearms license, but he wanted a certificate to put on the walls of his new office, that is when he got an office. That seemed very far away right now, about as far as he could get from his home in Newfoundland on the eastern tip of Canada.

He’d watched enough police shows on TV to know that he could make one phone call. But nobody had said when he could do that. The duty officer kind of smirked when he pushed him into the lock-up with his dozen new friends and told him, “Yeah, yeah, coming right up.”

Tizzard was confused but tried to look like he fit in with his fellow cell mates. They, in turn, looked like they were measuring his clothes to see if they might be a fit. As long as they don’t find out that I used to be a cop, I’ll be OK, thought Tizzard as he backed up as far as he could into a corner.

It seemed like he had waited forever, but as several of his new friends came in for a closer look, he heard his name called, “Tizzard, Tizzard.”

“That’s me,” he said and pushed by the two large men who had got the closest.

The duty cop opened the door, and Tizzard walked along the hallway to an interview room. He was pushed inside, and the door clicked shut behind him. It was a small, windowless room with a camera in the ceiling, a mirror on the wall, a single chair on one side of a table, and two on the other. Tizzard knew the drill and took a seat on the one-chair side. Then he waited, again. Feels like home, he thought. Just not my home.

On the other side of the continent Mayor Sheila Hillier was wrapping up her town council meeting and was on her way to meet Moira Stoodley who was babysitting her daughter, Amelia Louise. The meeting had been made unpleasant by a couple of contentious issues, including whether the older buildings in the downtown core of Grand Bank should be modernized or restored to maintain their historic character. But Sheila also realized that most of the tension was really about who would replace her as mayor in the election only a couple of weeks away.

Jacqueline Wilson was Sheila’s preference, but there was another candidate, Phil Bennett, who was leading the anti-tax faction of council. Every meeting, Bennett would try to disrupt things to show how influential he thought he could be, but Sheila would have none of it and would put him back in line. Bennett’s behaviour in itself was more than enough reason for her to want to leave, she thought.

Sheila had decided to go back to school part-time, eventually do an MBA once she had cleared up her scholastic records and completed the course load for an old degree program she had started several years earlier. Politics had never really been her thing, even though she was very good at it. She had only taken the mayor’s job to try to improve the town’s economy. And she had succeeded, mostly. The Town of Grand Bank’s fish plant was now operating on a regular basis with a quota for crab and the sea urchins considered a delicacy in Japan and China. The town also had a recycling factory and a solar panel fabrication plant.

Half of the town’s people wanted to not just preserve the past but to live in it. The other half wanted to blow it all up and start over. They had no use for the old and wanted everything to be modern, like the way it was in St. John’s or even nearby Marystown. It seemed there was no middle ground for the residents of Grand Bank, yet Sheila was sure you could have the best of both worlds. Getting others to agree with her, though, seemed impossible.

Sheila gathered up her things and drove to the Mug-Up, which was known through much of the province to be the best little café there was in Grand Bank. That it was the only café in Grand Bank was usually not mentioned. Sheila had owned the place years ago but gave it up after a horrific car accident left her with a slight limp and no desire to stand all day. Moira and her husband, Herb, had taken it over, and it was there that she found Amelia Louise sitting at a table with her Poppy Herb.

“Mama, mama,” she shrieked as Sheila’s heart melted. “Ook, ook.”

“I think she’s got talent,” said Herb Stoodley.

Sheila examined the crayon scrawls on the paper and murmured her approval. “It’s so nice,” she said. “Is it Lady, your doggie?” she asked, making a leap of faith based on the fact that there was one small circle on top of a large mass of scratches.

Amelia Louise smiled and nodded her head up and down emphatically. She had always been able to somehow say no, but now the 20-month-old toddler was happy to signify yes with a grand gesture.

“Well, thank you,” said Sheila. “And thank you, Herb. And here’s Moira, too. Thank you, Moira, for looking after her.”

“It’s our pleasure,” said Moira, wiping her hands on her apron. “I was just finishing off some baking.”

“Em,” said Amelia Louise. “Ook, ook,”

“I can see,” said Moira. “Has Poppy Herb been nice to you?”

“She’s like our baby, too,” said Herb. “It’s easy to be nice to her. ‘Those that do teach young babes, do it with gentle means and easy tasks.’”

“Okay, my soon-to-be-famous artist, let’s go,” said Sheila as she put on Amelia Louise’s jacket. Once outside again, Sheila noticed the November air had lost any tinge of summer warmth, and the wind was picking up, making it a bit of an adventure to walk the short distance to their house. Sheila tried to carry her daughter, but Amelia Louise was determined to walk on her own, while examining every leaf that blew their way.

When they got home, Molly the cat watched them carefully as they came up the walkway. The dog, Lady, was more directly affectionate and showed how much she had missed them both by almost knocking them over in the hall. The only one missing from the happy family was Sheila’s husband and the father of Amelia Louise, Sergeant Winston Windflower of the RCMP Grand Bank Detachment. He was at work, but Sheila expected to hear from him soon because his stomach would be rumbling any minute now, and he’d want to know what was on for dinner.

Mike Martin was born in St. John’s, NL on the east coast of Canada and now lives and works in Ottawa, Ontario. He is a long-time freelance writer and his articles and essays have appeared in newspapers, magazines and online across Canada as well as in the United States and New Zealand. He is the author of Change the Things You Can: Dealing with Difficult People and has written a number of short stories that have been published in various publications across North America.

The Walker on the Cape was his first full fiction book and the premiere of the Sgt. Windflower Mystery Series. Other books in the series include The Body on the T, Beneath the Surface, A Twist of Fortune, and A Long Ways from Home, followed by A Tangled Web, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Bony Blithe Light Mystery Award as the best light mystery of the year, and Darkest Before the Dawn, which won the 2018 Bony Blithe Light Mystery Award. Fire, Fog and Water was the eighth in the series. He has also published Christmas in Newfoundland: Memories and Mysteries, a Sgt. Windflower Book of Christmas past and present.

He is Past Chair of the Board of Crime Writers of Canada, a national organization promoting Canadian crime and mystery writers and a member of the Newfoundland Writing Guild and Ottawa Independent Writers.

A Perfect Storm is the latest book in the Sgt. Windflower Mystery series.

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mike54martin

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheWalkerOnTheCapeReviewsAndMore

Pump Up Your Book Virtual Book Tour Kick Off: CALL FROM HOME by Joni Parker @parkerjoni #Fantasy

CALL FROM HOME

Joni Parker
Village Green Press LLC
444 pages
Fantasy

If home is where the heart is, the warrior Lady Alexin is very far from home, indeed. Banished from her home in the Elven realm of Eledon to the mortal world of near future London, and robbed of her magic, she has no choice but to try and find a place in a world where she doesn’t fit in. Yet for all their peculiarities, the mortals have not been unkind; she has a new career as a high fashion runway model, her very own flat in a posh section of town and a host of opportunities to socialize with a variety of admirers, including a handsome Detective Inspector from Scotland Yard.

Yet nothing but her former training as a tracker and assassin could have prepared her for the discovery that beautiful young Elven women are being kidnapped and trafficked as slaves into the mortal world by the notorious Rock Elves, working with the white supremacist 23rd Infantry–an unholy alliance led by Alex’s old nemesis, Sawgrass. As the truth unravels her mission is clear–a call from home she cannot allow to go unanswered, even if it means her life.

Amazon → https://amzn.to/3bPgW6P

Chapter 1

Rejected…angry…confused…depressed…Alex’s attempt to return home to Eledon to be with her Elf family and friends had failed and she remained stranded in the mortal world. No, the correct term was exiled.

Nothing seemed to improve her mood, not even signing a one-year contract to work as a model for Suzette, an up-and-coming fashion designer at a London studio.

            Suzette tried to help her state of mind by dragging her to a disco to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Miranda, Suzette’s former model, was in town for a few days and invited some close friends to join her celebration. Alex didn’t know her and wanted to decline, but Suzette insisted. So here they were, staring at the crowd on the dance floor.

            Hundreds, if not thousands, of bodies gyrated to the rhythm of the same musical heartbeat. The place oozed with humans and the music was so loud, Alex could feel her heart pumping in time with the music. Instantly, she felt like she belonged to the same musical organism that had taken over the dance floor. This was her first time in a nightclub—it was called the Factory, the newest hangout in London.

            They stored their winter coats and purses in a room to the side where Alex could speak to Suzette but she still had to shout over the music. “I thought you said this party was for close friends of Miranda. There must be thousands of people here.”

“Oh, you know how it is, love. One person invites another and another. The next thing you know, you have this. Come on, let’s join the fun.” She beckoned Alex to the dance floor.

            Alex didn’t know how to dance to this music, so she copied Suzette’s moves, raising her hands over her head and wriggling her hips, feeling somewhat silly. Abruptly, the lighting changed—Suzette’s blue hair stood out like a glowing lamp and Alex’s white blouse changed to purple.

Alex stopped and stared while everyone else kept dancing as if nothing had happened. She didn’t understand the transformation under ultraviolet light but when she looked over to ask Suzette, she was gone. Alex gasped, worried that someone might have kidnapped her. Just a few weeks ago, Alex herself had been kidnapped by a white supremacist group, the 23^rd Infantry, in order to lure Suzette’s father to a warehouse to kill him, just because he was a black man. Even knowing those men had been captured or killed didn’t stop her from panicking. She felt protective of Suzette; she was vulnerable, a black woman standing five-foot-two and a hundred pounds, soaking wet. At six-feet, Alex looked over the crowd and spotted Suzette’s vibrant hair and her clothes—the paisley shirt and jeans, now glowing under the light. She breathed a sigh of relief and headed over.

Without warning, a male dancer came up to her. He was young, tall, and thin; his white skin sunburned on his cheeks and nose. He’s cute, Alex thought and smiled at him. The mirrored disco lights flashed, showing off his light-colored eyes—blue or green or gray, she wasn’t sure but he winked at her. His blond hair was cut close to his scalp—the cut was often called high and tight by the soldiers at the Nyla Army Garrison where she’d been trained, but the top of his hair was long and fell around his ears. Was he a soldier? Her brother-in-law Edgar came to mind. He was a professional soldier and referred to civilians who dressed like soldiers as ‘wannabes.’

As she danced, she blushed as his eyes focused on her body as if he could see her naked. Uncomfortable under his stare, she danced around him toward Suzette’s last location, but he jumped in front of her and stood very close. He grabbed her waist and rubbed the crotch of his pants against her hips. His eyes closed and she could feel his arousal intensify. His public display shocked her and she tried to move away. But he persisted. Not only did this guy ‘wannabe’ a soldier, but he also wanted to be a sexual object. It reminded her of a film she saw with Suzette called Magic Mike. She threw her head back and laughed as she thought of a name for him, ‘Wannabe Willy.’ She shouted at him, “Back off!” and then resumed her journey.

But Wannabe Willy came up from behind and wrapped his arms around her. He rubbed his crotch against her buttocks as he shouted in her ear, “Hey, baby doll, I like tall girls. You turn me on.”

That was the last thing she wanted to do. She squirmed out of his hold as he slid a card down the front of her shirt with his right hand. “Call me. We can have a private party.”

Alex stiff-armed him in the chest, forcing him back. “I said to back off and I meant it!”

He laughed and danced closer as he wriggled his tongue and licked his lips. She kneed him in the balls and he bent over, covering his private parts with his hands. His eyes opened wide.

“I said to back off!” Alex’s jaw clenched tightly as she stood with her hands on her hips. “Leave me alone!”

He hobbled away and disappeared into the crowd.

Alex’s anger simmered. If I was home, my cousin Prince Darin would have sent him to the Mounds prison for rehabilitation. It was true, but her cousin wasn’t here and she wasn’t home…unfortunately. If Wannabe Willy ever came back, she’d have to deal with him on her own terms but she was in no mood for a fight.

Soon, the rhythmic beat of the music calmed her down. To her relief, no one seemed to have noticed her situation. She resumed her trek across the dance floor and finally tracked down Suzette, concluding she wasn’t in any danger.

Alex resumed dancing, copying moves from others around her. None of them were doing the same thing, so she improvised. Just as she got into her groove, the lights flicked on and a deep, male voice came over the speakers, “Time for a break. Be back in ten. We’ll keep the music going…down low.”

Suzette danced to the subdued music as she headed to the bar. She picked up two drinks, holding one high for Alex as she sipped the other. She laughed as Alex wormed her way over to her.

“Thanks.” Alex took a sip and puckered. “What’s this?”

“It’s called a Zephyr.”

It was blue and sweet and cold. Too sweet for Alex. She slid it onto the bar as Suzette headed to the women’s restroom.

Suzette waved her on. “Come on, I just saw Miranda go inside. Let’s wish her a happy birthday.” She danced past the girls standing in the line for the toilets. Near the sinks, a group of women huddled together to talk and laugh. They were all beautiful black women, current and former models at the same design studio where Alex had been hired, the first and only white model to be employed there.

In the middle of the huddle, Miranda showed off a beautiful diamond necklace. It sparkled brightly in the light as the girls oo’d and ah’d. Miranda was a bit shorter and thinner than Alex with beautiful dark skin, even darker than Suzette’s. Her brown eyes were wide with lashes thickly covered with mascara and sparkling eyeliner. Over her shoulders was draped a mane of frizzy blond hair and she had a delicate grace that reminded Alex of her grandmother.

If only I could be so elegant…Alex felt a twinge of envy. Her face glistened with sweat and wisps of her long black hair clung to her neck. With a paper towel, she blotted her face dry. Her blue eyes, bloodshot and irritated, stared into the mirror where she saw the blue hair in her ears. She covered them up with her hair. It was the only feature that made her different from the other people around her and distinguished her as a Water Elf among the Elves. To her, they stood out like beacons. How elegant is that?

As Miranda turned around, Alex got a good look at the necklace. Her eyes widened as she recognized a Governor’s chain, made by the Elves. A dozen large diamonds were connected by a gold chain with a piece of honeyed amber and a pendant, displaying an emblem of sparkling diamonds set on a golden plate. She’d seen the Elfin governors wear them at a meeting several years ago, each one unique.

How did it get here? Was this a sign—a call from home?

Writing fantasy novels is what Joni Parker loves to do. She’s just completed her third series, “The Admiralty Archives,” a trilogy. Her first series, “The Seaward Isle Saga,” includes three books and a short story, while her second, “The Chronicles of Eledon,” has four books. An award-winning novelist, she’s also branched off into short stories, joining local authors in an anthology called, “Beyond Tucson: Adventures in the Multiverse.” Her writing career began after 22 years in the U.S. Navy and another 7 years in federal civil service. She currently resides in Tucson, Arizona with her sister.