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RAINY SEASON – A Review by Elizabeth Merry

An excerpt:

This book is called “Rainy Season” and rain permeates the whole novel, as if the whole story was contained inside the rain – and I loved this. Here’s a picture of Rich, leaning over his balcony as usual:

“He leaned against the rail and smoked and watched the shadowed, glistening city as it slept within the downpour.”

I found the writing lyrical and rhythmic; words repeated making the prose like music. Indeed, I thought at one time, if I had a tune I could sing this book:

“Candlelight shimmered off her black sequin dress like the promise of a million stars.”

Elizabeth Merry, Author of WE ALL DIE IN THE END

Check out the full five-star review at Elizabeth’s website:

embookstuff.wordpress.com

ORDER

   
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THE GOOD KILL Is For Sale!

Wait a minute…

I think I mean, THE GOOD KILL is ON Sale?

Yeah, that’s it.

Silly prepositions…

Small but mighty.

Anyway, even though the romance noir novel RAINY SEASON is my latest belle of the ball, I thought I would give my last brainchild a little love by trying out for the first time one of those newfangled KINDLE COUNTDOWN DEALS.

Which means, beginning right now, you can purchase that dark, violent, thriller of a tome for a mere $0.99.

A former Navy SEAL turned vigilante hitman already in the crosshairs of corrupt Russian agents finds himself in even deeper trouble after rescuing a sex trafficking victim against her will just as she is about to be delivered into the hands of an unscrupulous corporate mogul, an impetuous and dangerous man who will not be denied his purchase. . .

ORDER HERE

But you need to move fast (or, at least fast enough to purchase it within the next 24 hours or so) because the price will keep going up until a week from now it will be back to its regular $4.99.

(Ah, uhm… for those of you who subscribe to NEWSLETTER LOVE, I apologize for announcing the sale began yesterday instead of today.

What can I say…

I’m a nerd.)

So, I guess I’ll step down from my less than stable used car salesman soapbox for now and get back to the business I’m more suited for…

I’m not exactly sure what that business is but it def ain’t a used car salesman.

Right on?

Write on…

#happyindependencedaymurica

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RAINY SEASON is now available

You can order the ebook or paperback here.

Falling in love is the last thing a mysterious American expatriate in Tokyo is looking to do, especially with an alluring jazz club singer shrouded in vague mysteries of her own…

~~~~

Tokyo during rainy season, when the sun rarely shines and the days are hot, wet, and long, is the perfect place for a man like Rich, a man who has traveled the world trying to outrun the memories of a bitter past.

Settled now, Rich spends his Tokyo days mostly in reflection out on his apartment’s balcony. There he leans against the railing, smokes his cigarettes, and watches the rain as it falls upon a sea of umbrellas flowing by on the sidewalk below.

But he spends his nights at The Low Point, a mostly unknown, cozy little jazz club where he is left alone to smoke, write in his journal, and drink Japanese whiskey… a lot of it.

With Tokyo, the largest metropolis in the world, Rich has become, if not happy, then at least content within his self-imposed seclusion.

That is until Miko is hired on to perform at the club. With her comes beauty, grace, an magical singing voice, and a large following that turns the once obscure jazz club into the it place to be.

Also with her comes trouble… a lot of it.

~~~~

Rainy Season, a novella… order here.

   
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A Turn From the Worst

So, I was thick into the development of the follow-up novel to THE GOOD KILL (any guesses what follow-up title will be?) when of a sudden it seemed like End Times had finally started to throw down with the Covid-19 pandemic and cult daddy trump’s horrific death-inducing response to it.

With the Killian Lebon storyline as dark and violent as it is, and with all the research into the real-life examples of darkness and violence it takes to bring it out fictionally, I just thought it best for my mental stability to shelve all the pretend mayhem for a while seeing how there was far too much of it going on within our apocalyptic twilight zone of a reality.

But of course I could not not write so I immediately began looking internally for a story that would be able to transport me away to a better place.

Continue reading “A Turn From the Worst”
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Straight On Through*

You just have to go on when it is worst and most helpless -there is only one thing to do with a novel [or anything important**] and that is go straight on through to the end of the damn thing.

Ernest Hemingway to F. Scott Fitzgerald in a 1929 letter from France, courtesy the New York Times archive
Hemingway and Fitzgerald in Paris, 1925, courtesy Brainpickings (lord only knows where she got it from)

#alonetogetherwiththelostgeneration

*Even though it says Straight On Through and not Break On Through, I wonder how many first thought of the Doors…

**IMO

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Pulitzer Prize Winners

Congratulations to a bunch of writers I’ve never heard of who’ve written a bunch of books I’ll never read.

(The obvious hyperbole serves only to mask the bitter envy)…

Click on the image or visit pulitzer.org for the complete list

#alonetogetherwritingthenextpulitzerwinner

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We are what we… read?

At least according to the Big Think article The Books You Read Really Make You Who You Are:

“The takeaway from all [the studies] is that no matter the culture, humans are intimately attached to stories. They’re part of our makeup as a species. Stories can literally transport us into the mind and body of a character. They can move us toward empathy or action. Nothing has the power to inform, change our minds, unlock our potential, or transform us and our society in the most powerful and profound ways. Now, we’re starting to unlock the neuroscience behind this and learn exactly how they impact us.”

Courtesy of The New Republic

If this is true, that what we read deeply shapes who we are, and my common sense detector, aka my gut, tells me it is, then in a nation where reading for personal interest has been in steady decline since 1978, we’re in big trouble.

But it certainly goes a long way in explaining our national empathy deficit…

#readon

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Shelter In Place and Read!

Hey, there. It’s been a while so I just wanted to check in to see how you’re doing during this post-apocalyptic world of bad fiction it seems we’re living in.

I assume you’ve been reading, a lot, during this extended vacation Mother Nature has forced upon many of us, so I figured I’d give you something else to put in your depleted TBR queue.

THE GOOD KILL is free from today through Wednesday at Amazon just for you.

Snag a copy right here >> https://amzn.to/3bWfOgF

THE GOOD KILL
In this action-filled thriller, a former Navy SEAL turned vigilante hitman finds trouble after rescuing a sex trafficking victim against her will…

Anyway, I’ve been working mightily on new material. Unfortunately, I’m not coordinated enough to be able to focus on a WIP and on blogging regularly so I’m not sure when I’m going to check back in on you.

So, until then…

Stay Safe!

Stay Positive!

Stay Home!

🙏🏻

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A GATHERING OF BUTTERFLIES by Sean C. Wright – A Review

BOOK | FICTION | SHORT STORIES
A GATHERING OF BUTTERFLIES by Sean C. Wright
RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★

Order

Tales of steely but vulnerable women of color will melt your heart while lifting your spirits…

A fierce grandmother keeps her grandson from the clutches of Old Scratch in Devil Does Dallas.

An alien abduction transforms a large, miserable woman in Hazel Hogan.

A country girl meets a city girl on her birthday, and struggles to decide if the girl’s heart is dark or light in Bubble Bath Twelve.

And methodical Genie forms an unlikely relationship in Heaven’s Halfway House while in a coma.

Book Description from Amazon
Continue reading “A GATHERING OF BUTTERFLIES by Sean C. Wright – A Review”
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THE GOOD KILL – A Review by Gina Rae Mitchell

GinaRaeMitchell.com

I would like to sincerely thank Ms. Gina Rae Mitchell for taking the time to read The Good Kill and write such a fantastic review for it.

I could tell when first visiting Gina’s website packed full of book reviews, author interviews, and all kinds of other interesting information from gardening tips to tasty recipes that hers was a platform I would love to get my book profiled on. So, as you can imagine, I was very grateful when she responded in the affirmative to my review request.

Continue reading “THE GOOD KILL – A Review by Gina Rae Mitchell”
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THE GOOD KILL – A Review by Kitty Marie

Two of my favorite reviewers are Pulitzer Prize-winning literary critics Michael Dirda of the Washington Post and the great Michiko Kakutani, formerly of the New York Times. Both can lay out a review in ways that break a book down for a reader in interesting and informative ways without simply making it seem as if they are listing out a series bullet points… like many reviewers tend to do. And both can bring you to an understanding of the work being reviewed – what they like about it, what they don’t – with always just the right tone deserving of it. Mostly both are modest and balanced in their well-informed and well-referenced literary assessments; however, if the book calls for a fight, they can take it down to the mat as fast and as hard as any crazy-eyed pile-driving WWE champion ever could. Ms. Kakutani was especially known for her fearlessness – and ruthlessness – when taking on the bad writing of popular(ly pretentious) authors.

*cough, Franzen, cough cough

Fortunately, Mr. Dirda is still working his beat for the Post.

Unfortunately, Ms. Kakutani, after a stellar and storied career, retired from the Times a couple of years ago… right around the time of President The Donald’s election come to think about it.

When I learned of her retirement it actually made me sad.

But guess what.

I think I may have found a worthy replacement for Ms. Kakutani as one of my top go to reviewers…

That would be Ms. Kitty Marie of Kitty Marie’s Reading Corner.

That’s right, check out her review of my book, of which is reblogged down below for your entertainment and instruction, and then check out all of her many other interesting, informative, and tightly structured reviews posted to her website, and try to tell me you don’t agree with me that her reviews are some of the best there are.

Yeah…

Thank you Kitty for all the time and care you invested in reading and reviewing, not just my book, but all the others as well. You, and all the reviewers out there like you doing it simply for the love and admiration of the written word, provide an immensely valuable service for the entire literary community.

Write on!

Kitty Marie's Reading Corner

The Good Kill: A Killian Lebon Novel (Amazon Link)

Author : Kurt Brindley
Published By : PROSOCHE
Year Published : 2019
Genre / Tags : Action, Suspense, Adult Fiction, Dark Fiction
Mood : Gritty, yet having the feel of an action flick.
Formats : Paperback, eBook
# of Pages : 404 pages (Hardcover)

Summary

A former Navy SEAL turned vigilante hitman already in the crosshairs of corrupt Russian agents finds himself in even deeper trouble after rescuing a sex trafficking victim against her will just as she is about to be delivered into the hands of an unscrupulous corporate mogul, an impetuous and dangerous man who will not be denied his purchase. . .

Review

Content Warnings : Violence, torture, gore. A victim of sexual assault goes into heavy detail of her experiences on one scene late into the book. Coercion and rape, drug use.

Note : I received a…

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THE TELEPORTER by Lee Hall – A Review

BOOK | FICTION | HUMOR
THE TELEPORTER
LEE HALL
RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★

What if there was a power like no other? What if one drunken slouch happened to stumble where nobody has stumbled before and discovered the ability to teleport!
Just when you thought there were enough super hero stories in this world, we made another one…
Kurt Wiseman is your average mid-twenties slouch with a serial thirst for alcohol, that is until destiny calls upon him to stumble where no man has clumsily stumbled before. By day he works for a familiar sounding, power hungry, media controlling, mega rich American businessman who represents everything wrong with society today. Whilst investigating this politically loaded story arc Kurt accidentally acquires a super power like no other. The ability to teleport!
Before he can think about saving the day, Wiseman must endure a journey of self-reflection by earning the trust of his friends and overcoming his greatest weakness, booze. Even if the path is filled with comic book cliché, inappropriate one liners and genre busting fourth wall action.
Not all heroes in this world are the same and with great power comes the possibility to go viral! This is a story that will unite humanity…
Kurt Wiseman is the Teleporter!

Publisher’s Book Description
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Continue reading “THE TELEPORTER by Lee Hall – A Review”
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THE GOOD KILL – A Review by Meg Orton

If you were to have asked me as recently as a couple of months ago just before I released my latest novel what the state of the literary union was like, I would have answered most assuredly that it was in a sad and rapid state of decline.

However, after spending the past couple of months hustling daily in search of reviews for my book, I have come to realize just how vast and seemingly growing the union actually is.

I am wholly amazed and completely impressed by how active… nay, not just active, but how enthusiastically aggressive this wondrous and brightly beaming ecosystem of book readers and reviewers actually is.

And as I daily seek out new reviewers to pester with my requests by scrolling through the WordPress “book-reviews” tag, it seems that the list of reviewers that the tag calls forth is more than just a defined ecosystem of readers, it seems as if I am scrolling through an infinite universe of literary lovers of the highest order…

Literary lovers who I find, unsurprisingly, to be mostly young women.

Young women such as book enthusiast and prolific reviewer Meg Orton.

I strongly invite you to check out not just Ms. Orton’s deeply penetrating and intellectually engaging website review of my book, which I’ve reblogged here for your entertainment and instruction, but also her Instagram site where she is a popular bookstagram reviewer and photographer.

Thank you Meg, both for reviewing my book with such thoroughness and intellectual vigor, and for giving me the grateful understanding and joy that our literary future is in goods hands… and even better minds.

For the Love of Meg

BOOK REVIEW:

Title: The Good Kill

Author: Kurt Brindley

Date published: 2019

Published/printed by: Prosoche

Star rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

{I was graciously sent this novel by the author himself in exchange for an honest review}

What is a ‘good kill’? What is so poignant to this story is making sure that you DO NOT (I repeat: DO NOT) make a clear distinction between wrong and right. Ever since I can remember I have always believed in the shades of grey that exist within, as well as outside the realm of good and evil, and in order to understand our hero, or ‘anti-hero’ we must accept that these particular characters exist. In Kurt Brindley’s novel our protagonist and our ‘anti-hero’ is Killian Lebon, a former Navy Seal whose experiences in Iraq have left him both severally injured physically and psychologically traumatized. Medically retired from the Navy Killian must now attempt to exist…

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THE GOOD KILL – A Review by Peyton Hammond

I’ve sent out many review request emails since I’ve published The Good Kill and after emailing one to Ms. Peyton Hammond the other day, I had just assumed, like most other requests, it would be a hit or miss whether it would get answered or not… mostly not as I’ve come to find out. As you can imagine if you’re an author in constant (desperate?) search of reviewers as I am, I was very surprised when I received a response from her that same day graciously informing me that she would review the book. That almost never happens. But then she surprised me again by telling me she would have the review up within a week. That never happens and I honestly, while thankful for the intent, was a bit skeptical. But I’ll be darned if she didn’t surprise me one last time by actually having the review posted within the week as advertised.

How cool is that?

Dry ice cold, that’s how cool it is.

I am a slow reader, almost as slow as I am as a writer, and I am so very envious of Peyton and others like her who posses the gift of not only being able to read a book all lickity split-like, but also being able to comprehend what has been read so quickly and then write about it in interesting ways that inform others as to why the book should or should not be read.

It truly is a gift, as it would take a month, at least, for me to read a book the size of my excessively wordy beast. And then to put a review together for it… it wouldn’t happen in a matter of days, that’s for sure.

Anyway, enough about my literary lameness and back to how very impressed I am with Peyton’s industriousness and the high quality of reviews that she so regularly posts to her well-kept, well-regarded, and interesting site, a site in which I recommend to you and all other book lovers like you most highly.

Thank you, Peyton!

Life in Books

Title: The Good Kill: A Killian Lebon Novel

Author: Kurt Brindley

Number of Pages: 404 pages

Publisher: Prosoche

Publication Date: May 1, 2019

Purchase: Amazon

My Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Synopsis from Goodreads:

A former Navy SEAL turned vigilante hitman already in the crosshairs of corrupt Russian agents finds himself in even deeper trouble after rescuing a sex trafficking victim against her will just as she is about to be delivered into the hands of an unscrupulous corporate mogul, an impetuous and dangerous man who will not be denied his purchase. . .

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

During the battle to liberate Mosul from the brutal grip of the Islamic State, Killian Lebon, a war-weary Navy SEAL Senior Chief, sustains life-threatening injuries from an explosion during a rescue operation that goes horribly wrong.

Forced into early retirement from a vocation that for almost twenty years had been his sole purpose…

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