This is my last post to the blog. I began writing about books here in 2010, and it's been a good ride. I want to thank all of you who shared these books and bookish events with me. I will be forever grateful.
Tuesday, October 12, 2021
Thursday, July 29, 2021
Review: DOWN RANGE
I reviewed Down Range (William Morrow) by sixth-generation Texan Taylor Moore for Lone Star Literary Life!
"The first in a planned series starring former Green Beret Garrett Kohl, Down Range is a military-style thriller set where the American West begins in the dramatic, isolated badlands of Texas canyon country. Synthesizing Tom Clancy and Reavis Z. Wortham’s Sonny Hawke, Moore stomps the pedal to the metal with a lead foot that never eases off—even when there’s a ninety-degree turn just ahead."
Click here to read the entire review.
Thursday, July 1, 2021
Review: THE QUEEN OF THE CICADAS
Tuesday, June 22, 2021
Excerpt & Giveaway: EL PASO SUNRISE
EL PASO SUNRISE
& EL PASO SUNSET
by Louis Bodnar
Publisher: Morgan James Fiction
Pub Date: September 24th, 2019 | January 5th, 2021
Pages: 292 | 238
Categories: Thriller / Terrorism / Conspiracy
From a Constitutional Republic to a Marxist Dictatorship led by a Muslim President in a Second American Civil War
"Kill him," the gravelly voice said on the speaker to the cream of the Russian and Muslim terrorist assassination squad infiltrating America from Canada and on their way to El Paso to kill lawyer Steven Vandorol. Steven was leading the Texas prosecution of Federal government corruption and with national implications before the fall presidential election.
El Paso Sunrise is the first of two stand-alone novels that together tell a grand story of love, passion, intense hate, violence and horror all brought keenly alive against the intentional radical transformation of America in a Second American Civil War by progressives, Muslim radicals and the American Left from a Constitutional Republic. It is also a portrayal of a future with the literal choking of Canada, Great Britain, Europe, the Middle East, particularly the sovereign State of Israel by Islamist radicals, ISIL, Hezbollah, Hamas and the spreading cancerous malignancy of a worldwide Muslim Caliphate.
Steven Vandorol had it all but lost everything when he fell hard from grace in the ultra-rich Sunbelt. Escaping to Washington, D.C., he found himself embroiled in evil, corruption, sexual obsession and addiction but, confronting his own demons, found peace and serenity in El Paso.
Then stunning Vanessa Carson, Steven's attorney friend and confidant amid the evil of D.C. brings her sunshine smile back into his life in El Paso and together as one, face their worst nightmares or rape, kidnapping and murder during the ultimate crises of a second American civil war started by powerful forces and only Steven and Vanessa stand in their way . . .
While El Paso Sunrise is a graphic story of evil in this world, it is also a timeless love story about goodness, faith, grace and friendship blossoming during a national emergency -- a clarion call to the world to remember what truly matters -- asking the question . . .
Can Steven force his own country and government to face their own demons before it's too late?
Purchase: *LouisBodnar | Amazon | Barnes and Noble
El Paso Sunset
Within El Paso Sunset, Steven and his friend, Vanessa Carson, face their worst nightmare of rape, kidnapping, and murder during the ultimate crisis of a Second American Civil War started by dark, sinister, and shadowy forces and only Steven and Vanessa stand in the way. El Paso Sunset is the second and continuation of two stand-alone novels that together make a story of love, passion, obsession, intense hate, pure evil, violence, and horror, all brought keenly alive against the panorama of the radical transformation of the great American Constitutional Republic.
Purchase: *Louis Bodnar | Amazon | Barnes and Noble
*Special Discount if you buy both books through Louis Bodnar's Website
EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 16 OF
EL PASO SUNRISE
BY LOUIS BODNAR
Exactly
twenty-six miles away, Canadian Mounted Police Sergeant Trevor Collington and
Constable Jack Ryan, both of the D Division-Manitoba, had just replaced the day
shift of the Manitoba-United States border checkpoint that was on Canada
Highway 83 South turning into US Interstate 83 (I-83 South), some 150 miles
from Carrington, North Dakota.
Mountie
Sergeant Collington was manning the glassed-in booth at the median while
Constable Ryan slept inside the border checkpoint house to the right of the
median booth. The entire checkpoint, the road just two lanes heading north and
south, was brightly lit by numerous sodium-vapor lights to almost daylight. The
border crossing checkpoint was located in a two-acre clearing in the dense
forest among a tall canopy of Jack pine and blue spruce trees. A light snow was
just starting to fall, the air cool and crisp. He would be relieved by Constable
Ryan promptly at four am.
It
was one fifty am, Thursday, September 3, 2015.
Snow is a little unusual for early
September, thought Collington as he poured himself another cup
of coffee from his multicolored thermos his daughter had given him last Christmas
and said out loud, “Just love the Jack pine smell,” as it reminded him of
Christmastime with his family. He had light classical music playing on his cell
phone and was reading a David Morrell thriller. He was really looking forward
to going home to be with his family as he had just been reassigned and promoted
from border checkpoint duty to his all-time dream job of fully horse-mounted
border patrol work at an over 100-square-mile area of horse trails in dense
forest.
Tonight,
and in honor of his promotion, he was wearing a full horse-mounted uniform
rather than his usual boring everyday gray shirt and dark-blue tie. He glanced
at his own reflection in the bulletproof glass and thought, I look rather smart this eve in my brand-new
uniform! He admired his flat-brimmed Stetson hat with dark-brown leather
band, red Serge tunic with epaulettes, and Sam Browne cross belts and gun belt
with his Smith & Wesson Model 5946 service pistol with Hogue grip. He
especially liked the rest of his riding outfit with dark-blue riding jodhpurs
with yellow stripes down both legs after British cavalry tradition, completed
by high riding boots and long-shank nickel spurs. He thought of his dear wife
and said out loud, “She thinks I’m very handsome in my tunic and especially
likes the epaulettes,” and smiled at his own reflection.
“Hello!”
Sergeant Collington said, looking out into the night as he took a sip of his
coffee. Bright headlights on the road coming from America about two miles away,
he guessed. He looked at his cell: one thirty am. “What’s this?” It was most
unusual for cars to come through this late at night in this very lightly
traveled border checkpoint.
The
headlights dimmed as the vehicle approached about a mile out and slowed to ease
into the checkpoint lane yards away from his booth as Collington watched the
car approaching.
It
was a four-door white Honda Civic, Nevada license plate UZ 3242, which he
jotted down in his day logbook, and had tinted windows so he couldn’t see the
driver, or passengers, as it came into the brightly lit clearing and slowly
rolled to his window.
Sergeant
Collington raised his left side window to the outside just as the driver’s side
window was lowering.
“May
I help…er…you, ma’am,” Sergeant Collington stammered and thought, She is absolutely gorgeous, as he looked
down to a woman driving.
She
had long, shining blond hair, large blue eyes, long eyelashes, perfect
eyebrows, and a very bright smile as she looked up at him. She was wearing a
low-cut blouse, open at the neck revealing marvelous cleavage of ample breasts.
“I’m
on the way to visit my mom in Melita,” she said, turning serious. “She’s really
sick, and I’ve been driving from Las Vegas airport for the last twenty hours.”
She was tearing up and shivered.
“Would
you like some hot coffee, ma’am?” Sergeant Collington asked, staring at this
gorgeous woman. “I’ll make some fresh if you would just park over by the
house.” He pointed to the house on her right.
“Why,
that’s so sweet of you, Officer…” She was smiling again.
“Sergeant
Collington, ma’am,” he stammered again, smitten by this very beautiful
creature.
“Okay,”
she said and started in reverse. Sergeant Collington was looking down at her
breasts smiling when, in a sudden flowing move, the woman pointed a 9mm
silenced Beretta and—pop, pop—shot him in the face.
She
calmly put the car in park, left the engine on, stepped through the glass
booth’s door, and shot him in the back of his head again…stepped over Sergeant
Collington’s body and pressed a button on the panel, ducked down, and waited.
In
a few minutes, the lights in the house went on and the door opened. “Hey,
Trevor, it’s not four o’clock yet…what’s up?” said the man coming out.
The
woman raised up, fired twice again—pop, pop—and hit him right in the forehead.
He was dead before he crumpled to the ground.
She closed the window and
locked it. Stepped over dead Sergeant Collington again, opened the door,
flicked the lock, and slammed the door shut behind her. Calmly walked over to
the dead man outside. Pop, pop…fired two more shots into his heart, put the gun
in the back waist of her jeans, and with some effort dragged the dead man back
into the house. Again locked the door from the inside, slamming the door behind
her, and walked back to her car. Pulled out the Beretta again, aimed, and pop,
pop, pop, pop…shot out all four camera monitors, emptying the gun. She backed
the Civic out of the checkpoint, turned around, and went back to the United
States, leaving a previously manned US-Canada border checkpoint completely
unmanned.
Louis Bodnar is a retired attorney currently living in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, with his wife Joan. As a naturalized American citizen, he was born in Vilshofen, Germany, immigrated to Brazil with his mother and brother, and came to America in 1958.
He was educated in the United States in Oklahoma, receiving an undergraduate degree from Oklahoma State University, a Juris Doctorate from the University of Oklahoma, and was a candidate for an LLM in International and Comparative Law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.
Website | Amazon | Facebook | Twitter
GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY!
ONE WINNER receives autographed copies of the two-volume set of the El Paso books.
(US only; ends midnight, CDT, July 2, 2021)
GIVEAWAY
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for direct links to participating blogs, updated daily,
or visit the blogs directly:
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6/22/21 |
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6/22/21 |
BONUS Promo |
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6/23/21 |
Review Book One |
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6/24/21 |
Guest Post |
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6/25/21 |
Dual Review |
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6/26/21 |
Excerpt Book Two |
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6/27/21 |
Excerpt Book Two |
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6/28/21 |
Review Book Two |
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6/29/21 |
Author Interview |
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6/30/21 |
Dual Review |
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7/1/21 |
Series Spotlight |
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Tuesday, June 8, 2021
Book Trailer & Giveaway: RIVER, SING OUT
RIVER, SING OUT
BY
JAMES WADE
Categories: Contemporary / Literary Fiction
Rural Fiction / Crime Fiction / Coming-of-Age
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Date of Publication: June 8, 2021
Number of Pages: 315 pages
“And through these ages untold, the river did act as the lifeblood of all those things alongside it.”
Jonah Hargrove is celebrating his thirteenth birthday by avoiding his abusive father, when a girl named River stumbles into his yard, injured and alone. The teenager has stolen thousands of dollars’ worth of meth from her murderous, drug-dealing boyfriend, but lost it somewhere in the Neches River bottoms during her escape. Jonah agrees to help her find and sell the drugs so she can flee East Texas.
Chasing after them is John Curtis, a local drug kingpin and dog fighter, as well as River’s boyfriend, the dangerous Dakota Cade.
Each person is keeping secrets from the others—deadly secrets that will be exposed in violent fashion as all are forced to come to terms with their choices, their circumstances, and their own definition of God.
With a colorful cast of supporting characters and an unflinching violence juxtaposed against lyrical prose, River, Sing Out dives deep into the sinister world of the East Texas river bottoms, where oppressive poverty is pitted against the need to believe in something greater than the self.
PRAISE FOR RIVER, SING OUT
''With echoes of Jim Harrison, Cormac McCarthy
(and perhaps a smidge of Flannery O'Connor), River, Sing Out is
a beautiful, brutal meditation on survival and love in the face of nearly unspeakable
violence and depravity in an East Texas community ravaged by the meth trade.
Taut, lyrical, and precise, the prose soars in this important new novel by
James Wade.'' --Elizabeth Wetmore, New York Times bestselling
author of Valentine
''If you read one novel this year, make it this one. James Wade's River,
Sing Out, is an instant classic filled with characters that will break your
heart, lyrical prose as haunted as the river it evokes, and a Southern Noir
undertow that wholly sucks you in and keeps you turning the pages until it's
searing, masterful conclusion.'' --May Cobb, author of The Hunting
Wives
''Wade, whose striking debut, All Things Left Wild (2020),
traveled back a century in Texas history, uses an unlikely friendship to
explore an equally wild present-day landscape...A haunting fable of an
impossible relationship fueled by elemental need and despair.'' --Kirkus
Reviews
PURCHASE LINKS:
Friday, June 4, 2021
Cover Reveal & Giveaway: DEADLY BUSINESS
DEADLY BUSINESS
BY ANITA DICKASON
COVER REVEAL
Anticipated Publication Date: July 3rd, 2021
Pages: 324 pages
Categories: Suspense | Thriller | Crime Thriller
A Texas Multi-Billion Dollar Lure!
Following a tactical raid at an Oklahoma farm, a phone call sends U.S. Deputy Marshal Piper McKay rushing back to the East Texas cattle ranch where she grew up.
Her grandmother, Jennie Layton, is near death from a crushed skull. When local authorities claim the cause of the injury was an accident, Piper isn’t convinced.
Who wants Jennie dead and why? Is the reason connected to a dubious contract Piper finds in Jennie’s desk?
Piper realizes her grandmother isn’t the only one in danger when she barely escapes a deadly attack. Thrust into the middle of a high-stakes, high-risk shell game, Piper’s become the target.
The case takes a bizarre turn when Piper unknowingly crosses paths with a Special Ranger. If he can’t derail her investigation, it could cost him his life.
With millions of dollars on the line, nothing will stop a ring of cold-blooded killers, including the murders of a U.S. Marshal and a Special Ranger.
PRE-ORDER on Amazon
Award-winning author Anita Dickason is a twenty-two veteran of the Dallas Police Department. She served as a patrol officer, undercover narcotics detective, advanced accident investigator, tactical officer and first female sniper on the Dallas SWAT team.
Anita writes about what she knows, cops and crime. Her police background provides an unending source of inspiration for her plots and characters. Many incidents and characters portrayed in her books are based on personal experience. For her, the characters are the fun part of writing as she never knows where they will take her. There is always something out of the ordinary in her stories.
In Anita’s debut novel, Sentinels of the Night, she created an elite FBI Unit, the Trackers. Since then, she has added three more Tracker crime thrillers, Going Gone!, A u 7 9, and Operation Navajo. The novels are not a series and can be read in any order.
As a Texas author, many of Anita’s books are based in Texas, or there is a link to Texas. When she stepped outside of the Tracker novels and wrote, Not Dead, she selected Meridian, a small community in central Texas for the location.
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
LinkedIn | Vimeo | Amazon Author Page
Giveaway
on Anita Dickason's Website!
Pre-order
Deadly Business, and you could win one of three prize packages (value
$40 each) containing a tote bag, mousepad, coaster, pen, & bookmarks!
Visit
www.anitadickason.com/
for details!
(US
only. Contest ends at midnight, CDT, July 2,
2021.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Monday, May 24, 2021
Monday Roundup: Texas Literary Calendar for May 23-30, 2021
Bookish goings-on in Texas for the week of May 23-30, 2021, compiled by TexasBookLover exclusively for Lone Star Literary Life.
Special events this week include the annual Boldface writers conference, Copperfield's Books's yearly local-author fair, and the Lone Star Book Festival in Seguin. Most events are still online via Facebook Live, Instagram Live, Zoom, and other venues.For a complete calendar of bookish events in Texas this week, including special events, daily listings, and exhibits, visit the GO! Calendar at Lone Star Lit.
Sunday, May 23, 2021
Lone Star Literary Life - May 23, 2021
Lone Star Literary Life is brand new, hot off the pixels, and nutritious. Follow the link for the latest Texas bookish news, reviews, interviews, and goings-on, then subscribe to the newsletter-it's free!
Monday, May 17, 2021
Monday Roundup: Texas Literary Calendar May 16-23, 2021
Bookish goings-on in Texas for the week of May 16-23, 2021, compiled by TexasBookLover exclusively for Lone Star Literary Life.
Special events this week include Read Across Texas with the Texas Center for the Books and a manuscript auction at Heritage Dallas. Most events are still online via Facebook Live, Instagram Live, Zoom, and other venues.For a complete calendar of bookish events in Texas this week, including special events, daily listings, and exhibits, visit the GO! Calendar at Lone Star Lit.
Monday, May 10, 2021
Monday Roundup: Texas Literary Calendar May 9-16, 2021
Bookish goings-on in Texas for the week of May 9-16, 2021, compiled by TexasBookLover exclusively for Lone Star Literary Life.
Special events this week include the first annual Southside Book Fair in San Antonio. Most events are still online via Facebook Live, Instagram Live, Zoom, and other venues.For a complete calendar of bookish events in Texas this week, including special events, daily listings, and exhibits, visit the GO! Calendar at Lone Star Lit.
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