Author: Michael

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Blog Tour: Skin of Tattoos by Christina Hoag

What’s it about?

Magdaleno is paroled from prison after serving time on a gun possession frameup. Rico, the rival who framed him, has taken over as gang shotcaller in Mags’s absence.

Back in Los Angeles, Mags promises himself and his Salvadoran immigrant family a fresh start. But he can’t find a decent job. His parents and his firefighter brother look at him as a disappointment. And Rico, needing to raise cash to bail out Cyco Lokos’ top leader, and eager to exert his authority, isn’t about to let Mags get away.

Mags’s desire for revenge and respect pushes him to make a decision that ensnares him in a world of deceit and betrayal, where the only escape from the deadly rules is the sacrifice of everything—and everyone—he loves.

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Literary Ashland with Victor Lodato

Victor LodatoOur June guest was Victor Lodato, a novelist, playwright, and poet. His first novel, Mathilda Savitch, was called “a Salingeresque wonder” by The New York Times and was on the “Best Book” lists of The Christian Science Monitor, Booklist, and The Globe and Mail. Mathilda Savitch won the PEN USA Award for Fiction and the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize.

Victor’s second novel, Edgar and Lucy, was published in March by (St. Martin’s Press). Lena Dunham calls Edgar and Lucy “profoundly spiritual and hilariously specific,” and Sophie McManus lauds the “tender, funny, living immediacy of its characters.”

Victor is a Guggenheim Fellow and the recipient of fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts, The Princess Grace Foundation, The Camargo Foundation in France, and The Bogliasco Foundation in Italy.  His work has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Granta, and Best American Short Stories. A recent essay was published in the “Modern Love” column of The New York Times.

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Blog Tour: Storm Shelter by J. L. Delozier

What’s it about?
Dr. Persephone Smith is a psychologist with a genetic gift. Her enhanced empathy allows her to feel on a primal level the emotions of others, which helps with her job as a counselor for the Dept. of Veterans Affairs. But Seph’s gift comes with a price. Plagued by nightmares and insecure in her work, she absorbs the suffering of her patients by day and swills tequila by night.

 

When Seph is deployed to an abandoned air hangar turned medical shelter during a massive hurricane, her worst nightmares come true. One by one, as the wind howls overhead, staff and evacuees disappear into the dark recesses of the vast space. The missing return as mutilated corpses. The living, trapped in the shrieking metal structure by the storm, descend into varying levels of paranoia and even madness. Seph must become both counselor and detective to determine who, or what, is calling them prey. Is the panic and mayhem just “shelter shock,” as the lead physician, Anne Parrish, insists? Or is everyone, Seph included, in danger of losing their minds—and their lives? Storm Shelter is a prequel to 2016’s Type & Cross.

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Blog Tour: Trained to Serve by Amy Shojai

What’s it about?

Trained to Serve is a novella in the Lei Crime KindleWorld. KindleWorlds is a unique new publishing context where authors expand upon and contribute to the world created by another author. In this case, the original author is Toby Neal who writes the Detective Lei Texeira novels. Her novels feature a Rottweiler named Keiki. Amy’s novella features Keiki as the main character before she is adopted by Lei Texeira.

Choices and challenges will bind them together…or break them apart.

Ten-month-old Keiki thrives on each test of her growing abilities, but strange new yearnings mystify and distract her. What’s a good dog to do? She doesn’t want to let the girl down.

Lia Corazon has only three days left to prepare Keiki for the police dog test. There’s more than the dog’s future at stake. Success will save Lia’s dream of rebuilding her North Texas dog kennel. Failure means a lifetime of living her grandparents’ dreams.

When a training exercise takes a deadly turn, Lia sends Keiki to protect a young girl, but who will protect Lia? There’s a killer on the loose and he’ll burn anybody who gets in his way.

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Literary Ashland with Amy Blossom

Amy BlossomOur May guest on Literary Ashland was Amy Blossom. Amy recently retired from her position as Public Service Librarian for the Jackson County Libraries and head of the Ashland Library.

Beginning as a corporate librarian in Chicago, Amy career veered towards public libraries until she came to Jackson County and Ashland. We enjoyed a wide-ranging conversation, covering fascinating topic from the history of libraries to the changes in the nature of librarianship.