Thrillerfest 2017 – Part 1

I just attended my first Thrillerfest and it was quite an experience. I skipped the preliminary events, Craftfest, Pitchfest, etc., because I visited old friends in Hartford, just a couple of hours northeast of New York City. One of these years, I might participate in the day-long FBI workshop. But that’s a plan for the future.

Thrillerfest started with a nice reception on Thursday night. I met up with Elena Hartwell, fellow Coffeetown Press author and fearless blogger. We grabbed a table near the entrance and gave out “Fearless Blogger” buttons. The fearless bloggers are an informal blog tour that grew from the debut class of ITW a few years back.

Continue reading “Thrillerfest 2017 – Part 1”

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.

Continue reading “Blog Tour: Skin of Tattoos by Christina Hoag”

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.

Continue reading “Blog Tour: Storm Shelter by J. L. Delozier”

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.

Continue reading “Blog Tour: Trained to Serve by Amy Shojai”

Blog Tour: The Scribe of Siena by Melodie Winawer

What’s it about?

Accomplished neurosurgeon Beatrice Trovato knows that her deep empathy for her patients is beginning to hinder her work. When her beloved brother, a historian, passes away suddenly, she travels to the Tuscan city of Siena to settle his estate. Overworked and in need of a respite, she welcomes the unexpected trip as she wrestles with her grief. As she delves into her brother’s affairs and his unfinished research, she discovers evidence of a 650-year-old conspiracy to destroy Siena.

While attempting to prove her brother’s theory, she unearths the journal and paintings of a 14th-century fresco painter named Gabriele Accorsi, the man at the heart of the plot. In one of Accorsi’s paintings, she discovers a woman who bears a startling resemblance to herself. The journal works as a portal to the past and Beatrice is transported to the year 1347. She awakens in a Siena unfamiliar to her—a city that will soon be devastated by the Black Plague.

In Siena, Beatrice meets Accorsi and falls in love—not only with the painter but with the cadence of medieval life itself. At the same time, she and Gabriele find themselves pitted against a Florentine conspiracy bent on destroying the city. As the Plague and the ruthless men navigating its deadly path threaten Siena, Beatrice must decide in which century she belongs.

Continue reading “Blog Tour: The Scribe of Siena by Melodie Winawer”