The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles Ray Rhamey
Vampire mythology is upended when Patch, a calico tomcat, is turned into breakfast--and a vampire kitty-cat--by a starving vampire. Narrated by Patch in a deliciously snarky cat take on the world, he struggles to find a new life, as it were, in which he's tried for murder, almost shotgunned into undead pieces, kidnapped twice, and turned into a (shudder) politician. As it turns out, life doesn’t get any easier after you’re dead. 5-star Midwest Book Review: “Superbly crafted by an inventive and skilled storyteller. Enthusiastically recommended for anyone who would enjoy a terrifically original and thoroughly entertaining yarn!”
Lyon’s Legacy Sandra Ulbrich Almazan
Lyon’s Legacy--Scientist Joanna Lyon despises her great-grandfather, legendary TwenCen musician Sean Lyon. Her uncle wants to clone him, even if he has to send Jo through a wormhole to an alternate universe where Sean still lives. Fearing the clone will be mistreated, Jo agrees to go so she can secretly sabotage the project. Then she learns she won’t be allowed to return home without Sean’s DNA, and other time travelers want to make sure she doesn’t tell her ancestor how he dies. Can she still thwart her uncle's plan, and what will she have to sacrifice to do so?
White Russian Edward Wallace Richbourg
Alexei Kikalishvili demands justice for the brutal murder of the parents of eight-year-old Maria Tarpischeva. Ten years later, with Maria, the reigning Wimbledon champion, financially secure and able to live on her own, he aims for revenge. He doesn't realize how much trouble that's about to cause him.
CIA agent Yuri Skurikov offers Alexei a Hobson's choice: assist Yuri in foiling the sale of a Russian submarine by the Merchant of Death to a Colombian drug cartel or face prosecution for murder.
The flippant, even irreverent, Alexei often entertains during his tragic global quest for revenge against the Russian Mafiya.
Blood Scourge G. Dedrick Robinson
U.S. Destroyer attacks the submarine carrying its new superbug. Years later, it kills people on a remote Philippine island. The CDC's Dr. Kristin St John thinks the outbreak is contained but Russian educated virologist turned terrorist Rishad Zharmakhan obtains a sample to unleash in American cities. Kristin tries to stop a missile strike on Zharmakhan's lab, fearing it might disperse the virus rather than destroying it, but it's too late. Now mutated into an unimaginably virulent strain, hundreds, then thousands are dying.
Send your published book for a place on the bookshelf. I've just one more book to put on the shelf next Monday, so if you'd like some exposure to holiday book buyers, submit your book according to the directions here.
Flogometer for Kendra: would you turn the page?
Kendra sends the opening to A Girl Called Graye.
City of Destiny, Oregon Territories, 1880
Ms. Ophelia Mudd knew precisely how to deal with wayward girls in her care. A firm hand, hard work, and no coddling. Oh yes, Ms. Ophelia had more than one theory about how to care for degenerate children. Her girls weren't destined for extraordinary things, Prince Charmings, or any other flights of fancy. Or so she thought.
It would be nice to think that Ms. Ophelia merely had the girls' best interests at heart, but alas, that was not the case. Ms. Ophelia was a true wart of a woman in both personality and appearance. She looked as if she’d been squashed by some giant compressor, causing her chin to sit squarely on her chest. Her breathing, perhaps affected by her diminutive neck, made little whistling noises with each breath she took as she shuffled from place to place with arms too long for her podgy body. A mobile lung followed along where ever she went, puffing and hissing as it squeaked along the floor on large iron wheels.
On this bright Sunday morning Ms. Ophelia lined up her girls from eldest to youngest in the long drawing room for inspection and lecture, as she did every Sunday. She walked along the line in near silence, saving for hisses from the mobile lung. Steel tubing coiled from the puffing machine and around Ms. Ophelia's head like a thin metallic serpent, resting on her hairy upper lip with its two blunt fangs inserted into her flaring nostrils.
Yes for me
This made me think of the first Harry Potter novel, which opens with colorful, detestable antagonists. There's no protagonist here yet, but there it tension in the air--what will this creature do to the girls? The voice and the writing were strong for me, and this is one of those cases where voice adds enough impetus to get the page turned. Oh, there are little edits I would suggest, but they are minor.
That said, I would look, if I were Kendra, for a way to get the nature of her caretaker onto the first page, perhaps trimming some of the description. The reason is that this seems to be a steam punk paranormal story, and the more clues up front the merrier. Here’s the relevant narrative from later in the story:
Betel Daggett was a scruffy old man with blackened teeth and lips as red as fresh blood. The deep wrinkles in his face could have hidden coins within them. Most of all, and possibly the real reason Ms. Ophelia hired him, was the white-faced terror he inspired in the girls. Their fear was justified, but not for reasons any of them dared imagine. Betel Daggett was what Daytimers would call a vampire (albeit a very old, very kind, and very wise vampire).
Comments, please?
Ray
Submitting to the Flogometer:
Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred):
- your title
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© 2011 Ray Rhamey