🏰 Book Feature & Excerpt: Sealed Up: The Course of Fate: Book One by Steve Dunn Hanson

Title: Sealed Up
Author: Steve Dunn Hanson
Genre:Action/Adventure/Suspense
Publisher: Independent
Pages:402

The Da Vinci Code unsettles. SEALED UP shakes to the core!

UCLA anthropologist Nathan Hill, in a funk since his young wife’s death, learns of staggering millennia-old chronicles sealed up somewhere in a Mesoamerica cliff. This bombshell rocks him out of his gloom, and he leads a clandestine expedition to uncover them. What are they? Who put them there? No one knows. But, self-absorbed televangelist Brother Luke, who funds the expedition, thinks he does. If he’s right, his power-hunger will have off-the-charts gratification.

Striking Audra Chang joins Nathan in his pursuit and brings her own shocking secret. As they struggle through a literal jungle of puzzles and dead ends, she finds herself falling in love with Nathan. Her secret, though, may make that a non-starter.

When a shaman with a thirst for human sacrifice, and a murderous Mexican drug lord with a mysterious connection to Brother Luke emerge, the expedition appears doomed. Yet Nathan is convinced that fate—or something—demands these inscrutable chronicles be unearthed.
And if they are . . . what shattering disruption will they unleash?

Intricately layered and remarkably researched, this enthralling suspense-driven and thought provoking tour de force begs a startling question: Could it happen?


Book Excerpt:

“How much farther?” Paul’s shirt was soaked from sweat.

Itzel looked at him and laughed. “Just like Torrance, huh?” Paul rolled his eyes.

“The cenote.” Ichika pointed to a three-foot-wide path that was recently cut through the brush. They followed it as it turned to the left then sharply to the right. The sinkhole loomed in front of them. The water, a huge blue sapphire, sparkled 15 feet below. Thick emerald-green growth reached down the sinkhole’s sides, but where they were standing, the vegetation had been cleared all the way to the water’s surface.

Paul stood at the cenote’s edge and stared down into the bowl. “You slipped here, you’d go all the way in.”

Itzel shuddered and pulled back; thoughts of her father overwhelming her. Was this what it was like where he fell? She trembled and turned away from the cenote. “Let’s leave.”

Paul looked at her and understood. He almost said something about his stupidity, but decided one foot in his mouth was enough. He motioned for Ichika to take them back the way they came. He put his arm around Itzel, and she leaned her head against him.

“Where are the ruins?” Paul asked. Ichika didn’t say anything, just pointed ahead. The brush and ferns that surrounded them were head high and prevented their seeing anything except along the trail. As they turned to go to where they first entered the path, Kish’s men stood waiting. Ikan, Muluc, and Yochi had machetes, and Gukumatz held a tranquilizer gun.

Paul and Itzel stopped. Ichika, her eyes fastened on the ground, kept going until she stood on the other side of the men. She turned back toward Itzel but wouldn’t look at her. “What’s going on?” Paul demanded in Spanish as he stepped in front of Itzel. Gukumatz raised his gun and shot a dart into Paul’s stomach. Paul flinched at the pain and looked down at his stomach. “What the ....” Paul yanked the dart out and threw it on the ground. A small circle of blood soaked through his shirt. He lunged at Gukumatz and swung his forearm around catching him on the bridge of his nose. Blood spurted from Gukumatz’s nostrils as he fell to the ground; a gash flaring open on top of his nose. Ikan and Yochi dropped their machetes and jumped Paul.

“What are you doing?” Itzel yelled in Lacandón. “Where is Kish?” Muluc grabbed her and threw his arm around her neck, holding her from behind.

“Don’t you hurt her!” Ichika screamed, as she advanced on him. Gukumatz stood up and wiped his nose with his sleeve; blood soaking through his shirt to his skin. His stare at Paul was chilling, and he swore at him in Spanish. Paul tried to get up to come at him. It was all the two men could do to keep him down even though his strength was ebbing. Gukumatz turned away from Paul and pulled a cartridge and a dart from the bag on his shoulder and loaded them into his gun. He walked to Itzel and shoved Ichika aside. He lowered the gun and shot the dart into Itzel’s stomach. She flinched at the pain and stared at Gukumatz. “You pig!” she spat.

Within a few minutes Paul and Itzel were unconscious. Gukumatz pulled the GPS trackers from their belts, turned them off, and slammed them against a rock. He grunted as he picked up Itzel and slung her across his shoulder. The other three men lifted Paul. They headed to the platform ruins.

The place of sacrifice.

 

🏰 AUTHOR INTERVIEW: 'The Twilight Tsunami' Shelby Londyn-Heath

Shelby Londyn-Heath, a transplant from New York, has been a world-traveler, crossing the Sahara Desert on the back of a salt truck, working on banana plantations in Spain, an oil company in New York, and on coffee farms in Hawaii. She has jumped freight trains across the United States, and she was the proud owner of a beachfront bamboo hut on the Canary Islands. She has worked as a counselor, social worker, and teacher.

WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS

WEBSITE | TWITTER | FACEBOOK

About the Book:

Grey is a hard-hitting foster care social worker who removes babies and children from dangerous drugged parents, violent homes, and families joined with criminal gangs.  He

is unstoppable until a
new social worker enters his department.  She is hungry for power and position, as she challenges Grey in malevolent and unexpected ways. As Grey yanks newborns from mothers, confronts irate parents, and lives through suicides of foster children aging out of the system, nothing stops him, until he meets his nemesis, a truly power-hungry woman. He must find her "Achilles Heel" and his inner truth, in order to rise up to conquer her. One of them must be transformed or destroyed.

Purchase your copy at Amazon.

As a book bloggin’ and book luvin’ Princess, I’m always curious to find out how authors got the ideas for their books.  How did you come up with the idea for your book?

I counseled children and families in the foster care system. I also raised a child who lost his mother,, and I had friends who were social workers. I knew I had a kaleidoscope vision of the subject people rarely talk about.. I felt a responsibility to create a story from multi-perspectives. I think the greatest messages for society come from stories.

Can you tell us what your book is about?

My book opens with a social worker named Grey removing a baby from its drugged mother. Grey has been in the field for many years, but he starts to experience anxiety and doubts after the baby’s mother has a terrible freak-out. To make matters worse, when he returns to the social services office, there is another social worker plotting to take his seniority away.

You see, social workers want to climb the work ladder. The better the position, the better the pay, and the less field work they have to do. There can be in-house conflicts and personality struggles on the job. The stress of their work is another factor that creates tension for them constantly.

Anyway, this conniving social worker does the most terrible thing to Grey that anyone could do to a person working in social services. She brings him to his knees, literally. Afterwards,  she goes after other social workers and adds to their daily work traumas by trying to control them. It is only when Grey makes a bold move that everyone’s lives change.

Can you tell us a little about the main characters of your book?

Grey:          the dedicated social worker who struggles to keep himself together

Marjorie:    the social worker who wants to get rid of Grey and control the department

Christine:   Christine, Grey’s supervisor, who sees what is going on and tries to save Grey. She ends up having to save herself.

If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would that be?

Write. Take risks. Write more. Take more risks.

What would you say is one of your interesting writing quirks?

Waking up in the night and thinking about my characters as my story builds.

Do you hear from your readers?  What do they say?

A lot of readers say they cannot put my book down once they start reading it. They tell me there is a lot of suspense and action that keeps them reading.

What is the toughest criticism given to you as an author?

The toughest criticism has been from my family. Some of them open my first chapter, shut it, and tell me it’s too heavy to read. That’s a shame because there are fun parts to the book and in the end, everything works out in unique ways.

What has been the best accomplishment?

Finishing this book. I put it away quite a few times.

Do you Google yourself?

All the time.

How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?

Four.

Do you have anything specific that you would like to say to your readers?

Yes. Read my book. You’ll have a wild ride.

🏰 FREE!!! Ghostly Paws (Mystic Notch Cozy Mystery Series Book 1) by Leighann Dobbs

*** USA Today Bestseller ***

Middle age can be murder ...

At least that’s how it seems to former crime journalist, Wilhelmina Chance, whose near-fatal accident has given her a strange side effect ... she sees ghosts.

After a messy divorce sends her fleeing back to her hometown of Mystic Notch, nestled in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Willa finds herself haunted by the tenacious ghost of the town librarian who insists Willa solve her murder.

Luckily, she has lots of help, including a quirky cast of small-town characters, the cat she’s inherited from her grandmother, and her best friend, Pepper, who claims her herbal teas can work magic.

But just when Willa thinks she’s discovered who the killer is, she finds out that things are not what they seem in Mystic Notch, and the case takes a strange turn that has Willa adding even some of her long-time friends to her suspect list.

Can Willa find the real killer in time to keep the magical balance in Mystic Notch on the side of good, or will evil prevail?

Get it while it's free!

https://www.amazon.com/Ghostly-Paws-Mystic-Notch-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00IZ0ZY9E?_bbid=2880398&_bbtype=email

🏰 I'd Rather Be Batman?

This would be me.  I was an ornery little princess.

🏰 Book Steps?

I'm on the fence about this but my gut is telling me to absolutely love this for my princess stairs! I love to read and I have steps - LOTS OF STEPS.  I'm not sure if the prince is going to love it and I must respect his opinion too so maybe the steps that lead to my reading loft.  Yeah, that's it!  I found this in an ETSY store:

🏰 Book Feature: Dominion by D.A. Hewitt

D.A. Hewitt is an award-winning author of four novels and over a hundred short stories. One novel was awarded a gold medal from the Independent Publishers Book Awards for best regional fiction. He attributes his success to hard work, honing a skill and providing an outlet for his passion for writing.

Born in Michigan, he lived for 25 years in North Carolina before returning to live in his home state. In addition to enjoying sky diving and mountain climbing, he is a proud veteran of the US Marine Corps and has earned a degree in mathematics.

Mr. Hewitt admits to a fascination with the work of Carl Jung and of the Gnostic religion. He’d always thought intertwining these topics in a science fiction novel was a stretch, but one day the storyline of Dominion came to him. He wrote the novel in a stream of consciousness. “It makes sense, tapping into the collective unconscious,” Mr. Hewitt says, “very much like Carl Jung might have predicted.”

It’s the year 2075. Lunar mining and processing facilities have prospered near the lunar south pole, where the Moon’s largest city, Valhalla, rests on the rim of the Shackleton Crater.

Dominion Off-Earth Resources has beaten the competition into space and is ready to establish its monopoly with the opening of the orbiting space resort Dominion. But Pettit Space Industries has a secret plan to emerge as a major contender in the commercialization of space. The upstart company is training the first space rescue squad at a secluded off-grid site in Barrow, Alaska.

The rescue squad gets nearly more than it can handle when its first mission involves the Pope, who’s traveling to the Moon to establish the Lunar See. During the rescue attempt, they discover Earth is imperiled by an asteroid large enough to cause mass extinction. Using the unique skills taught during their training, skills emphasized by the great psychoanalyst Carl Jung, these Jungi Knights must elevate their game if they are to save both the Earth and the Pope—while not getting killed in the process.

Book Excerpt:

The girl shook her head impatiently, the ponytail swaying back and forth. “You don’t recognize me?” she asked.

I looked closer. “I’m not up on the latest supermodel scene,” I told her, “and I haven’t seen many movies lately.”

“Supermodel? Movies? What on Earth are you talking about?”

“You seem to think I should recognize you. I assume you’re a model or an actress, someone who would be easily recognized.”

She whispered something under her breath, and having a modest ability to read lips, thought she’d said, What an idiot. “I’m Jessica Thibideau.”

I thought Julia was going to leap out of her chair and try to strangle the girl. I reached over and laid my hand on her forearm with as much reassurance as I could muster.

Julia reached over, grabbed the back of my neck, pulled my head down, leaned in, and whispered, “She runs the science departments in DOER’s space program. She’s the daughter of Benjamin Thibideau.”

“Oh,” I whispered. “Yes, of course I’ve heard of her. Never seen a picture, though. Why would she assume I’d recognize her?”

“Even in the Ural Mountains, I’ve seen news pics of the famous Jessica Thibideau. Her spaceship designs incorporate integrated shielding generators. She’s responsible for the explosion of industry in space.”

“And on the Moon,” I added. “Maybe I have seen her picture. She looks different in person.”

Jessica Thibideau began tapping her toe. “If you don’t mind, I have things to do.” She waved her arm in a wide sweeping movement. “And in case you haven’t noticed, we have a problem here.”

I began straightening myself but Julia grabbed my wrist. “Be careful,” she whispered. “Her company practically buried yours. Some say the stress is what killed your father.”

“Yeah, well, my dad worked too hard.”

I pulled away and straightened myself in my chair and folded my hands in front of me on the table. “Are you referring to the street music?”

She snorted. “Of course. What are you, some kind of joker?”

“Just trying to communicate.”

She reached up and pinched her nose, equalizing pressure. “You stole my asteroid retrieval drone.”

My reaction caught me by surprise. I jerked back as though jolted by a cattle prod such was my surprise at being accused of something so off my radar that she may very well have accused me of being an alien in disguise. “What?” I managed to eke out.

“You must’ve sanctioned it, at least. There are only two players in space—DOER and PSI. And DOER wouldn’t steal from itself.”

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“A DOER asteroid interceptor-collector drone has gone missing. Not only that, a dummy drone was left in its place to camouflage the theft. Now tell me, Mr. Pettit, how many companies have the capacity to handle what an interceptor-collector drone can deliver?”

I held up two fingers, eyebrows raised with uncertainty.

She stared as though trying to melt me with her glare. After a few moments, she made a sound that resembled harrumph and placed her hands on her hips. “Anibal Sanchez is your stooge, right?”

She throws out big tomatoes and observes your reaction.

I realized that this woman believed she possessed the skill to discern changes in blood pressure, eye dilation, and other change indicators that revealed when a person was lying.

Interesting.

“Never heard the name before,” I told her. “And now that I’ve answered your question, Miss Thibideau, I’ll tell you that you’re in no position to judge me. You don’t know me, and I doubt you have the depth of field to see clear enough for me to even want to have a conversation with you.”

“We all make judgments constantly,” she shot back. “You’re judging me right now.”

“You’re the one who barged in on us.”

She took a step to her left, then to her right. She placed her hand on her chin, opened her mouth, then finger-tapped the side of her head. She looked like a frenzied shopper who’d lost her shopping list and was trying to recall each item in the order in which they appeared.

She reached up and pinched her nose. Instead of finding it annoying, I found myself attracted to it.

Here, let me help …

Finally she stopped fidgeting and looked at me. “Mr. Pettit, allow me to apologize, please. I just got back from Valhalla, and I’ve got a bit of the jitters. I’m jumping at conclusions.”

“I hear jitters can be a common problem for space-goers,” I said. I reached over and nudged a chair away from the table. “Have a seat.”

Julia jabbed me with her elbow. I leaned over and whispered, “Let’s see how much information we can get.” Then I kissed her neck and this seemed to appease her.

Jessica Thibideau glanced back at her sedan. “All right. I am starving.” She sat and whispered a command that brought up a translucent eight-panel octagonal grid interface that encircled her.

Impressive. But where’s the projector? An implant? No—more likely embedded in clothing.

Signorina Thibideau twirled her finger and jabbed at one of the displays on the panel to her left. She glanced at me. “How’s the pizza here?”

“Out of this world,” I said, trying to suppress the corner of my mouth from rising slightly. I failed.

Jessica closed her eyes, sighed, then placed her order.

Julia leaned in and whispered, “She seems flighty to me.”

“Jitters is typically temporary.”

“Permanent jitters, in her case, if you ask me,” Julia commented.

🏰 FREE!!!! Headless in Nevermore (Witches of Nevermore Book 2) by Violet Merriweather

Headless in Nevermore (Witches of Nevermore Book 2) Kindle Edition

by Violet Merriweather 

NOW THAT SHE’S FOUND HER MAGIC, SHE’S READY TO TAKE ON THE WORLD, NEVERMORE, AND ENORMOUS QUANTITIES OF ICE CREAM (NOT NECESSARILY IN THAT ORDER).

Cassandra Holly is Nevermore’s newest Shadow Witch. Or will be once she completes her training. So of course this is the perfect time for a (mostly) dead person to show up needing help with a few things.

Like figuring out who killed him, for starters.

THAT’S WHEN THINGS GET COMPLICATED.

When a person has died seven and a half times already, it’s a given that eventually one of those times is bound to disagree with them. Enter Zimbree—a Franken-head of sorts that is missing both his body and any relevant clues that might lead to the person responsible for his most recent demise.

And he wants his body back. Justice would be nice too.

HAPLESS VICTIM ASIDE, WHAT IF HER CLIENT ISN’T AS INNOCENT AS HE SEEMS?

The deeper Cassie gets into the investigation, the more she’s sure Zimbree is hiding something from her. Especially when everything seems intent on thwarting her. Like a band of wraiths that seem oddly connected to her client, and then by the Council of Merlin itself.

And that’s before the djinn shows up, her pre-hatched dragon goes rogue, and she discovers that a bit of illicit necromancy might be the least of her problems.

Get your copy while it's free!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01NGZZN92