Picture caption: Cover for Unbury the Dead by Laurel Hanlon
I reviewed this book in my capacity as a member of Rosie’s Book Review Team. If you would like your book reviewed, you can contact Rosie Amber here: http://rosieamber.wordpress.com/.
Picture caption: Emblem for Rosie’s Book Review Team
I always enjoy a good vampire novel, especially during Halloween month. Unbury the Dead, debut novel by Laurel Hanlon introduces the novel concept of vampire mafia. The main character, Phil, has fallen foul of his mafia boss father-in-law, resulting in his being interned in a concrete crypt beneath the ocean. The novel starts with Phil finally finding some success in wriggling himself free of his watery grave and making an escape. Phil knows he has been interned for a lengthily period but doesn’t know how long.
The great escape kicks off a fast paced and entertaining story about a vampire misplaced in time and astounded by the wonders of the 21st century. Hunting humans is certainly more difficult with modern technology like cameras on streets and in stores, credit cards, and cell phones. Phil must adjust to these enormous changes while on the run from his father-in-law’s mafia henchmen who become aware of his presence in New York due to his publicized indiscretions.
This book introduces fresh and interesting ideas to the well know vampire mythology and sets the characters in an intensely modern 21st century setting. I enjoyed the ‘culture shock’ and acclimatization aspects very much. There is also an intriguing romance thread that allows for the introduction of some of Phil’s backstory and a deep dive into the cause of his incarceration and current problems.
All in, this is an entertaining retelling of the well-known vampire story and worth the time if you enjoy vampire tales and mythology.
Picture caption: book cover of A Bold Bargain featuring an old fashioned motor cycle and a wolf-like dog
This is the third book in the Bargainer Series and my personal favourite. I am really enjoying these uplifting stories filled with kindness. These books restore my faith in the goodness of humanity, and I appreciate that in our current world of endless bad news.
Jack made his entrance in book 2 as the younger brother of the main character, Rose. His strength of character and innate goodness were evident in that book and this one builds on the reader’s previous interactions with this interesting young man. It is not necessary to read the earlier novels to appreciate this book, but it does help with a greater understanding of Jack’s past and the childhood setbacks he has overcome to get where he is at the beginning of this book.
I was delighted to discover Jack working as a substitute conservationist and knocking heads with vicious poachers of wild animals. Jack’s deep love of animals really resonates with me, and I was also thrilled at his adoption of first a young puppy (possibly part wolf), and then other creatures in need. Jack’s willingness to help other in need leads to his meeting and assisting and elderly woman who is slowly going blind and suffering other effects of an illness and also, a young lady who is on her own mission to help her aging grandfather.
These threads of catching poachers, helping Mrs Fletcher, meeting Finley, and developing bonds with various animals, all weave together into a beautiful and uplifting story. This is a wonderful book to read in the lead up to the Christmas season or at any other time when your spirits need lifting.
Thank you to Nolcha Fox, editor of Chewers by Masticadores, for publishing episode 2 of chapter 1 of my work in progress novel, The Soldier and the Radium Girl.
I am sharing the first chapter of this novel to test the water as to whether it interests people. I would appreciate your comments as I decide whether to finish it or not.
Walking home through the emerald fields with Kate by his side, regret at all he’d be leaving behind dampened Jake’s enthusiasm. By the time he’d delivered Kate safely home and reached his own front door, the fiery eruption of excitement had slackened, and anxiety, like fine ash, coated his heart.
Jake’s ma was in the kitchen with his younger sister, Martha. The rich scents of roasting meat and apple and cinnamon enfolded him in their warm embrace. Mrs. Coombes, the cook, was not there. It was her bi-weekly day off, and Jake was pleased and relieved. Pleased that his ma was cooking, she was a great cook and her meals were always fit for a king, and relieved that he didn’t have to face Mrs. Coombes reaction to his news, as well as his ma’s and sister’s.
“Jake, you’re just in time to carry in the wood,” Martha cried, beaming. “I’ve filled the wood box, but it’s too heavy for me to carry.”
“I’ve enlisted, Ma.” Jake spat out his news like a bit of undigested food.
#BadMoonRising Through the Nethergate by Roberta Eaton Cheadle #horror #historicalfiction #bookgiveaway
Thank you to author, Teri Polen, for sharing this post about my book, Through the Nethergate, as part of her Halloween Bad Moon Rising series.
You name a genre, and this author’s written it – adult novels, young adult, poetry, children’s books. She’s also working on the first novel in her cake art and baking trilogy. Find out which book scared her so much it kept her awake at night – but not enough to quit reading it. Welcome Roberta Eaton Cheadle!
Would you rather spend a night in The Overlook Hotel with Jack Torrance or be in the high school gym during prom with Carrie?
Stephen King was my favourite author when I was a pre-teen. I read all the books he wrote during the ‘70s and ‘80s (hidden behind the couch as they belonged to my mother). The Shining is still one of my top three King books so I would choose to spend a night at the Overlook Hotel rather than at a school prom. I particularly enjoyed the scenes in the bar when Jack Torrance meets the various ‘ghosts’ which inhabit the hotel. This novel explores family relationships and how love and nurturing can turn to hate, and resentment given the right circumstances. I always find psychology fascinating.
Three short quotes that summarise the essence of The Shining:
“Sometimes human places, create inhuman monsters.”
“Monsters are real. Ghosts are too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win.”
“The world’s a hard place, Danny. It don’t care. It don’t hate you and me, but it don’t love us either.”
When my sister, Hayley, was a newborn baby, we lived in a house in a new area called Jukskei Park in Johannesburg. Our house was the second to be built on our street and was surrounded by vacant plots of land waiting to be sold. One of these plots had been used as a dumping ground for the builders and there was a huge mountain of sand, rubble, and other rubbish in the middle. By the time we moved into this house, the rubble mountain was already sprouting little bushes and even some wildflowers. It looked quite pretty, and it was an attractive place for two little girls to play while their mother was fully absorbed by a difficult colicky baby.
I decided that we should have a clubhouse on the top of the mound where we could shelter during the hottest part of the day. My idea was that it would be a shady little room for us to sit in and play dolls. The clubhouse was constructed from broken bricks which I laid one on top of the other in the manner of a real builder. Dad had shown me how to make a strong structure with bricks by laying the second row over the joins in the first row. Of course, we didn’t have any cement, but the structure did hold together. I found a sheet of corrugated iron for the roof. It didn’t turn out to be the shady sanctuary of my imagination as it was extremely hot and stuffy inside, but we still do go into it during the mornings and late afternoons when the temperatures had dropped a bit. The house brought us a lot of pleasure and we had broken pieces of cups and plates and other bits and pieces of crockery we’d scavenged from the mound.
One day, I had the bright idea that we should slide down the mound on pieces of cardboard. This was fabulous fun until I cut my leg badly on an exposed piece of glass. I had to have the wound cleaned and dressed and Mom found out about the clubhouse on the rubbish mound. Naturally, we were banned from any further games involving climbing the rubbish mount which stopped this game in its tracks. It was a lovely few months while we had access to it.
Thank you to Nolcha Fox for serialising the first chapter of my work in progress book, The Soldier and the Radium Girl on Chewers by Masticadores. This is the first section.
He’d enlisted, and he could honestly say it was Nora Bayes’ fault. Jake had been enjoying a soda with his girl, Kate, and some friends at Eddie’s Pharmacy when the hit song, “Over There,” came on the radio.
Over there, over there, Send the word, send the word over there That the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming The drum’s rum-tumming everywhere So prepare, say a prayer, Send the word, send the word to beware We’ll be over, we’re coming over And we won’t come back till it’s over, over there
The words fired the patriotism of all the young men and by the end of the song, they’d all joined in, belting out the words in loud, excited voices. Slurping down the last cold mouthfuls of their ice cream sodas, they’d collectively decided to go and kill themselves a few German Bosch.
“We’re gonna wipe them out,” Beau cried. “Fucking Bosch want to rule the world, but they’ve got to get past us first.”
Picture caption: Cover of Miira Innterscape: Book 1 by A.C. Flory
What Amazon says
In 2101, the average life expectancy is one hundred and ten. Miira Tahn, last Lady of Dhurai, is dying at just fifty-two. Faced with a slow, agonizing death, her only hope is Innerscape, a virtual paradise in which the Residents inhabit beautiful, digital bodies indistinguishable from the real thing.
Or so the brochures say. But even Eden had a snake, and once inducted, the Residents of Innerscape can never again return to the real world. If anything goes wrong, they’ll be lost in the dark forever.
Yet for Miira Tahn, even a tenuous hope is better than the fate that awaits her.
‘…sometimes you just have to close your eyes and jump…’
‘Miira’ is the first book of the Innerscape cyle and corresponds to Episode 1 of the original series.
My review
This is an extraordinary book. I have had it on my TBR for a few years, but I am not a big sci fi fan so I put off reading it. Now, I regret waiting as this really is a most intriguing and clever book. I already have the next book in the series and will be reading it in the near future.
Miira is a woman, a refugee, whose life has been reduced to that of a middled aged invalid reliant on a manufactured exoskeleton to help her do everything. All her status and money cannot reverse the damage done to her physical body during her early years as a new refugee in Australia. Faced with a slow and painful death, Miira choses to enter Innerscape, a virtual world for wealthy individuals whose physical bodies can no longer offer them a good life. Despite some anxieties, Miira decides to go ahead and undergo the transition of her body to enter Innerscape. Once transitioned there is no returning to your previous life.
Miira is an excellent character. Highly intelligent and yet vulnerable, the author’s sensitive writing brings Miira to life and I really wanted Innerscape to meet her expectations and make up for everything she’d lost over her relatively short life of 52 years. As in the real world of ordinary humans, nothing is every straight forward. Innerscape is run by people who are subject to many character flaws and these extend into the virtual world they helped to create and run. Miira is a strong and determined woman, one who sets a good example to all female readers, and although this book ended after her integration into Innerscape, the reader knows there is a lot more to come and believes that Miira will overcome whatever is thrown at her in this strange new virtual world because she is a survivor. As a side note, I really liked that Miira chose to return to a younger version of herself when she entered Innerscape and didn’t turn herself into an artificially enhanced ‘Barbie doll’.
One of the reasons I don’t read a lot of sci fi is because I don’t like pages of explanations about future worlds or, alternatively, no explanations at all so I don’t really understand the future world. The author managed to keep the reader completely informed about her created world by showing and through dialogue which made this book a really good experience for me. I could understand exactly how both the future world and the virtual world of Innerscape worked from the behaviours, actions, and conversations that took place.
I highly recommend this book and I am looking forward to reading the the other books in this series.
Picture caption: Cover of Happy Hour and Other Sorrows by JT Twissel
What Amazon says
October 11, 1970
Dear C.
Here I am in PARIS FRANCE! Wow. I’m staying with my uncle’s boss, a gay guy who was some kind of a big wig during WWII which is all they ever talk about here.The war, the war, the war! That trip I told you about to Milan to retrieve a vintage car . . . well it didn’t go so well. The owner DIED on the way home and the Swiss police thought he was MURDERED and so they tried to make me stay but it was too freaky so I split .
Oh, and remember that cute guy GIL? He keeps popping up but I don’t think he really likes me. I think they just want him to keep an eye on me because I supposedly have the KNACK FOR TROUBLE and might poop in a bidet or really kill a burgermeister. Sheesh.
You wouldn’t like it here because they eat BUNNIES and SNAILS and all kinds of gross things. I guess they had to during that damn war. I should be home by Christmas unless another trip goes awry and I end up missing my flight home, AGAIN! And boy, will I have a lot of stories to tell.
Love, Riley
My review
This was a fun romp around Germany, a bit of France and a few other European places through the eyes of a young American college student named Riley. Riley’s Uncle Bob, whom everyone assumes is a spy for the American government, lives in post-WW2 Germany. In an unusual gesture of generosity, he offers to host Riley for a few weeks for a European vacation. Riley’s not that keen as she has her college studies and a boyfriend but her mother is very determined for her to take this unexpected opportunity. And so she does.
The opportunity turns out to take the shape of acting as a driver for her uncle who has been banned from driving by the German authorities. He also turns out not to be a spy but an accountant for the American Government which isn’t quite the same thing. That is what he says, in any event. Regardless, Riley does seize the opportunity and sets out to meet ‘real’ Germans and do things that ‘real’ Germans do. Her uncle, the non-spy, also involves her with various work colleagues who take her on what are planned to be short travel adventures and end up being unexpected catastrophes.
Riley goes to Europe very much a typical American student with limited life experience and this all changes during her time in Germany which ends up being a lot longer than the planned few weeks. The book is a coming of age story and I loved following Riley’s escapades, some her own fault and some imposed on her. It was a most unusual and refreshing read for me.
When I was a girl, Dad bought Cath and I a blow-up canoe for a joint Christmas present. It was shaped like a kayak and was a vivid orange with blue paddles. Dad used to take us on day outings to Langebaan Lagoon, and we would spend the day paddling the canoe from one inlet to another around the lagoon. From time to time, we would climb out and spend some time playing on the beach. We like to build lines of sandcastles with our buckets and spades. When on the water, we were supposed to stay near the edges of the lagoon, but we usually didn’t. It was easier to paddle further out where there were no rocks and people swimming. It was also enticing. As I rowed across the calm, fairly warm water, I could hear the song my paddle sings as it rose and fell, splish splash. Mom and Dad were always distracted with our two young sisters, so Cath and I pretty much did as we pleased without either of them noticing.
I was nine and a good swimmer, I was always selected to swim backstroke in the interschool galas. Cath, however, was only five and was still learning how to swim. One hot afternoon, I rowed the canoe to close to a rock, and it scrapped along the side under the water. I was concerned so I decided to row us back to our parents so that Dad could check the canoe. My concern didn’t extend to staying to the edges though. The quickest way back was straight across the middle. We were about halfway across when I noticed that we were sitting in a puddle of water. The funny thing about taking on water is that once it starts it seems to come in quicker and quicker. I suppose the hole got bigger as the water poured in. I rowed like a mad person and quickly covered another half of the remaining distance. By this time the water was fairly deep, and the canoe was much lower in the water as the side was also deflating. I got Cath to bail out water with our beach bucket and continued to row. As soon as it was shallow enough to stand, I hopped out and dragged the canoe with Cath still bailing to the shore. That experience gave me a fright, and I never used the canoe again even though Dad patched it most effectively. Although nothing terrible happened and I didn’t have to use plan B which was to swim with Cath on my back to the shore, I was sufficiently upset by this experience to never enjoy boating on the ocean. When I do go on a boat, I am always uptight and anxious.
Picture caption: Waterfall in the Drakensberg. This picture won an Expert Commended in a Photocrowd challenge. Picture caption: Female nyala. This photograph won an Expert Merit in a Photocrowd challengePicture caption: Bee in a cosmos flowerPicture caption: Vervet monkey in a treePicture caption: Another picture of the same vervet monkey in the tree. I was thrilled with these shots
Picture caption: WordCrafter Curses Book Blog Tour banner
It’s Day 4 of the WordCrafter Curses Book Blog Tour and Robbie Cheadle is hosting today, here on Roberta Writes to help launch Curses: Chronicles of Darkness. Thank you so much for having us here, Robbie.
Today, you’ll get to meet contributing authors C.R. Johansson and Robert White and learn more about their stories in the Curses anthology. Plus, Robert shares a guest post about the inspiration for his story here, and on the second stop of the day, over at Undawnted, DL Mullan will share her interview with Robert. Don’t forget to leave questions and comments for both stops here to enter in today’s drawing for chance to win a digital copy Curses: Chronicles of Darkness.
Giveaway
We’re giving away 5 digital copies of Curses: Chronicles of Darkness.
All you have to do to enter is
follow the tour and leave a comment.
About Curses: Chronicles of Darkness
Picture caption: book cover of Curses featuring three female demons
Curses that last throughout time. Curses which can’t be broken. Curses which are brought upon ourselves. Curses that will kill you and those that will only make you wish you were dead.
Eleven tantalizing tales of curses and the cursed. Includes stories by Kaye Lynne Booth, Molly Ertel, C.R. Johansson, Robert White, Joseph Carrabis, Paul Kane, Danaeka Scrimshaw, Abe Margel, and Denise Aparo.
When I was eighteen and working as a stockboy in a family grocery store, a man came in asking for directions to the site of “the Ashtabula Bridge Disaster.” I had no idea what he was talking about and put it out of my mind—but never completely out.
Decades later, when I became curious enough to find that locale right under my nose, so to speak, I discovered the history of what had been in its time the greatest train wreck in the United States and remains so in the nineteenth century. All the big papers and magazines of the day covered it in their lush, purple prose and indeed that coverage was warranted. Over ninety people died, many horribly, I was to learn, when the Pacific Express with its passenger cars, plunged into the gulf a thousand feet past the train station that it roared by in a blinding blizzard on a Friday of December 29, 1876. When iron truss bridge collapsed into the gulf below right after the lead locomotive, The Socrates, crossed it. All the cars behind it went into the gulf below from a height of seventy feet, including the three luxurious sleeping cars with their individual names: The Yokohama, The Palatine, The City of Buffalo.
Many who survived the fall drowned in the river. Other who survived the bridge collapse and avoided drowning, were severely wounded and froze to death on the riverbank, owing to the ongoing blizzard on that frigid day. The most tragic details of the deaths, however, came from the fact that the kerosene lamps in the passenger cars set fire to the coal cars behind the diesels. Those poor souls trapped in the wreckage, including parents and their children, died a cruel death and could not save themselves from the fire—a fire that burned in the twisted metal and wood long after the blizzard stopped. A ghastly way to die.
The genesis of my story—namely, the “dark man” and the curse he inflicted on the males of the Longspeth line—came from the fact that the early reports of the fire described how many of my town’s citizens answered the call of distress and went down the snowbanks to assist the survivors.
Others, however, a very few, did not. They came down the riverbank to steal from the dying and wounded: money, gold watches, jewelry. These were the worst kind of thieves, the scum of the earth. Some were named and jailed, according to archived copies of the Ashtabula Telegraph, long defunct. The incompetent fire chief of the time was another who failed to do anything to rescue people (rumor of the day had it that he was an alcoholic).
One of the many accounts published in the days and weeks afterward is from a Miss Marian Shepherd from Ripon, Wisconsin, who was one of the fortunate ones to escape death. She said: “From the burning heap came shrieks and the most piteous cries for help. I could hear far above me the clangor of bells, alarming the citizens. We climbed up the deep side of the gorge, floundering in snow two feet deep.”
One of our local cemeteries which I’ve passed hundreds of times has a mass grave marker dedicated to the deceased who could not be identified.
One of my characters in the story leaves a bar as the train rushes past, soon to fall to its doom. He hears the desperate, short blasts of the train whistle of the lead diesel, which had just made it across the bridge. He is Adam Longspeth, the original victim of the curse of the “Dark Man,” whose description I borrowed from one of the better known victims of the disaster: P.P. Bliss, a well-known psalmist and author of the hymns “Hold the Fort,” “Almost Persuaded,” and “Hallelujah, What a Savior!” I made him turn up at each subsequent male Longspeth from Adam on to the present narrating Longspeth, but all their fates are predetermined.
The narrator of my story only recently discovers what darkness he has inherited on his twenty-first birthday when his father presents him with a leather-bound journal kept by the Longspeth men who record their encounters with the Dark Man.
If there’s no actual curse from the real tragedy, perhaps there ought to be. The bridge’s designer, Amasa Stone, committed suicide. He insisted the bridge be built entirely of iron rather than wood and iron. The jury report found that was one of several faults that contributed to the failure of the bridge to support a live load (i.e., moving trains). Mark Twain, never one to miss an opportunity to display his wit, commented famously that “[a]pparently nothing pleases the Almighty like the picturesque,” referring to Stone’s ignominious backside hanging over the edge of the tub after he inflicted his fatal wound.
Charles Collins, chief engineer for the railroad company, was later found dead in his bedroom of a gunshot wound to the head. It was deemed a suicide—except that two official autopsies in 1878 concluded he was murdered.
The train depot today is gone, the town having failed to save it, and the railroad company tore it down. Its historical significance was also included in my story because in the summer of 1892 many farm boys met there at dawn one day, all drawn by the Pinkerton Detective Company’s advertisements around the county of munificent $5 a day wages to break up strike at the Carnegie steel mills in Pittsburgh. They met with horror down there—irate steel workers who vastly outnumbered them, beat and spat upon them, and dragged them into an empty warehouse as their hostages. After their release and return back to Ashtabula on another train, one depressed young man threw himself off the train to his death.
Sometimes, as is often said, truth is stranger than fiction, but I tried to be factually faithful to the details of the bridge disaster. It seemed wrong, not to.
Picture caption: extract from The Longspeth Curse by Robert WhitePicture caption: extract from Road Kill by C.R. JohanssonPicture caption: author picture for C.R. JohanssonPicture caption: author picture for Robert White
Tell us a bit about your photography – are you a professional photographer or is photography a hobby? Have you done any courses on photography or are you self-taught?
From a very young age I was interested in photography. The fact that you can capture a moment in a photo and immortalize it, truly fascinated me. My first hands on experience was with a very basic camera my dad owned. It would be a very long time before I could finally afford to purchase my first camera. From then onward, I never stopped trying to improve my skills, learning by trial and error and research from various sources.
It is a hobby, but a fundamental part of my life.
Picture caption: Three- spot Grass Yellow. Photographed in Sri Lanka by Michael Sammut
In a dark forest A yellow butterfly lands On a violet bloom.
Haiku533.
What draws you to photographing birds and other creatures in our natural world?
I am particularly interested in photographing nature, in particular birds and butterflies. Not only because I find them fascinating but also to immortalize their beauty and share it with other people, with the final intent or hope, to promote the conservation of our natural world which is constantly under threat from human irresponsible activities.
Picture caption: Hummingbird Hawk- Moth. Photographed in Gozo, Malta by Michael Sammut
Flying to and fro Sipping from purple flowers The fast wings humming.
Haiku 672.
Tell us a bit about your camera and what works for you with photography?
In over 35 years I have worked with various cameras from the same brand. I lived through the evolution from film photography to digital photography which brought in many changes and somehow made photography more accessible. Now I have started to work with mirrorless cameras which are a huge leap into better results in photography especially when you need high speeds in low light conditions, a common occurrence when photographing fast moving subjects like birds. I prefer a telephoto lens as it gives you the freedom to choose how to frame the subject. Nowadays there are some great options in the market that don’t necessarily break your bank account. I use a 100-500mm lens which Replaced my previous 100-400mm lens. For other subjects I use a 24-105mm lens.
Picture caption: Sparkling Violetear (male). Photographed at Wild Sumaco Lodge, Ecuador by Michael Sammut
Glittering jewel A moment frozen in time Darting hummingbird.
Tell us a bit about your art journey – when did you start drawing and painting? Which came first, the photography or the art, or did you always do both?
As much as I was interested in photography I was also interested in art, in particular drawing and painting. This came before photography but to my regret, I have put this aside for a long time due to limited time.
Picture caption: Spring Bloom. Acrylic on canvas by Michael Sammut Depicting the beauty of fields covered with flowers in spring.
Robbie: I am very drawn to this incredible artwork. The colours are amazing.
What medium did you prefer to work with for your artworks?
My dives into the art world are somewhat sporadically. As a medium, I prefer to work with acrylic, aquarelles, ink and pencil colours. I find that Acrylic gives you a great variety of options but pencil colours give you more control.
Picture caption: Black- shouldered Kite. Ink and aquarelles by Michael Sammut
Who is your favourite artist and why?
My favorite artists are Vincent Van Gogh, Vasily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Picasso. Whenever, I look at their paintings my mind is intrigued and pleased at the same time.
Picture caption: Aftermath: Acrylic on canvas by Michael Sammut Painted during the Yugoslav wars, when genocide and atrocities occurred on a daily basis and the world just kept their eyes closed.
Picture caption: Blog photograph of Michael Sammut
My name is Michael Sammut, born in Malta, where I still live. Travel is an important part of my life, firstly because I love exploring and discovering our planet but secondly the get away from the insular mentality of small island countries. I love nature, travel, adventure, nature conservation, art, poetry, music and photography.
I graduated as an Industrial Designer and also hold a certificate in Ornithology.
I have dedicated my life to exploring and studying nature and in return love to share the beauty of nature that surrounds us, hoping to inspire more people to love and protect nature and the environment.
In recent times I have been inspired by a fellow blogger and poet to dive into the world of Haikus which has opened a new way to express my interests.
roberta-writes.com 