Larry Wilson: Books they'd like to find under the tree

Larry Wilson's Public Eye blog More 

WHAT do we want to see under the tree? Book-shaped boxes, containing books. 

Why? 

They contain the world's best stories, and they are a lot better looking - in the hand, on the bookshelf - than a Kindle file. 

First, you could get a jump on Pasadena's 11th One City, One Story community read in March with Karen Thompson Walker's fabulous "The Age of Miracles." The novel is set in North County San Diego in a time much like the present, except that the Earth's rotation has dramatically slowed. The days are longer, and so are the nights. It's either about the environmental havoc that ensues - beached whales, high tides - or the ordinary havoc of being a teenage girl like our heroine Julia. Both amount to the same. I loved this story. 

The romance readers in your family, and the Italophiles, want San Marinan Terry Stanfill's second novel "Realms of Gold," set in opulent Venice and ancient Celtic Burgundy - those Celts were everywhere - among Americans and Italian-Americans. As in Lian Dolan's "Helen of Pasadena," the hunk is an archaelogist, apparently the sexiest grove of academe. You'll learn tons about the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, Jason and the Argonauts, mythic Avalon and a millenia-old mystery. 

Read more: http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_22235125/larry-wilson-books-theyd-like-find-under-tree?source=rss#ixzz2GHeCdvoL

Guest Post: Tips on Writing Fantasy by Nadine Maritz

If you type Fantasy Writing into any search engine these days you’re met with a gazillion links leading to every possible tip and trick to succeed at writing. It can be a little overwhelming so, since I’ve started writing my set of novels, I thought I’d let all the other first timers out there know what I’ve learned on my adventure. Please note, though, this is my opinion only.

I write fantasy, but I wanted to start out by giving more general tips that should apply to any genre. First off, let’s look at some of the things I wish I’d known before I started writing.

1. If you’re a first timer with no background in writing I suggest reading everything you can lay your hands on when it comes to writing.

2. Assess what you want from writing. Do you want to get published more than anything in the entire world or are you really just writing for your own pleasure? If it’s the latter and you’re not honest with yourself upfront it could end up costing you a crap load of money and only giving you a very low morale in return.

3. Know from the word go that in order to succeed you will need to put a lot into it. Writing can be fairly expensive—especially these days, when an author is expected to market themselves for the most part—and it’s never easy. It’s an art, and in order to succeed you will need determination, patience and, for some, money. 

4. Write an outline, create your characters and decide what you want to achieve in your stories. Now, I know this doesn’t work for everyone, but it does help me. By doing this I know exactly what to expect from my characters and I stay focused on where I want the plot to go.

5. Buy yourself some big girl panties (or suitable gender-specific underwear.) You need to know from the word go that not everyone will like your ideas, your style, your characters or your plot. Thick skin is a necessity.

6. Get an editor. Not everyone needs one, not everyone can afford one, but if you’re like me it’s a necessity. Also, to fit my sparkling personality, I didn’t require just anyone. I had to look for someone who is experienced in my genre, liked my idea and was willing to invest time and energy to help me polish my story.

7. Network. Networking is more important than ever in today’s market. I’d say even if you can’t meet with people face-to-face it’s important to get active on social networking. That way you build up a relationship with fellow authors, publishers, agents and potential readers.

Finally, since fantasy is my passion, as I feel it’s one of the most creative genres where you get to create new worlds, I wanted to end off by talking about what works for me, writing in that genre specifically.

1. Setting, in terms of time, needs to be appropriate and convincing when it comes to technology.

2. Don’t expect readers, agents or publishers to visualize something that’s unconvincing. What publishers will look for is specific—a good story, a clear plot structure, well-developed characters and dialogue.

3. Start off with your world. This world needs to be pretty fleshed out before you can move onto the next step.

4. Create maps—you don’t need to get it all coloured up for publishing but by creating this you have a general concept of where stuff takes place.

5. Magic—if your world involves magic, you will need to create—and stick to—rules for it before you start writing.

6. Try to avoid clichés. Parameters have pretty much been set when it comes to dwarves and fairies etc. Focus on developing something new yet realistic.

7. Characterization in fantasy is very important. Unless your world is specifically built to accommodate it, you can’t take a sailor from the 1400s and put him into a 21st century space shuttle.

Remember to write what you love. Know that your first draft will never be your best draft, writing will take time no matter what genre you focus on and, if you take these points into consideration and are prepared to put in the time and effort, I’d like to believe you, and I, will succeed! 



Nadine Maritz ( formerly known as Cloete) was born in 1981 in the heart of Johannesburg, South Africa’s City of Gold. A variety of influencing factors and individuals has helped shape her journey towards writing this her first novel. 

Nadine's Novel “My Addiction: My Gift; My Curse,” is a South African contemporary fiction novel that reflects on the relatable day to day livelihood of an Afrikaans vampire nurse that works in an old age home.  This is the first novel of a series.
http://my-addictionbooks.blogspot.com

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

[via Oscar Castro-Neves]

All that remains of communities and civilizations, All that remains of their worth and dignity Exists in the art they leave.

          
~  William Carlos Williams







William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet closely associated with modernism and imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine with a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Williams "worked harder at being a writer than he did atbeing a physician" but excelled at both

Ken Atchity Author and Story Merchant with Host Yi Tian on ActorsE Chat

Video streaming by Ustream

Ken Atchity Author and Story Merchant with Host Yi Tian on ActorsE Chat

The Messiah Matrix Website

ActorsE Chat is a Live Chat Show on Actors Entertainment, a channel on the Actors Podcast Network, a Pepper Jay Production

NEW DISCIPLINE FROM JEFF RIVERA FREE TO STORY MERCHANT FRIENDS

Success as a writer is 90% work and 10% talent.  No matter how talented you are, if you do not do the work, if you do not roll up your sleeves, none of your dreams for greatness as a writer can ever come true. That's just reality.

The challenge is that today's writer is, quite frankly, distracted. It goes beyond simply wanting to wash your windows and walk the dog instead of writing.

Nowadays, the biggest time zapper is the Internet. Whether it's Facebook, Twitter or checking your email 400 times a day, every second you're playing on the Internet is one step further from your goal as a writer. In my book, A Writer's Time: Making the Time to Write, I talk about how imperative this step is.

That's why when I was introduced to a new tool my good friend Jeff Rivera is beta-testing, I had to share it with you. It is a software that will prevent you from using the Internet without finishing your daily word count. 

If you're serious about your commitment to writing, I highly recommend it. 

Download  Write the Damn Thing now!

Rudy Yuly's Sparkle is named one of the top five books of 2012 by Crime Fiction Lover!

// Features

DavidPrestidge: Top five books of 2012

By DavidPrestidge ⋅ December 5, 2012

It’s been a year when self-publishing and the rise of the digital book have made a huge impact on the range of crime fiction available to reviewers and the reading public. Anyone who has the stamina and bloody-mindedness to plan, plot and complete a book can now see it on screen, if not feel the pages with their fingertips. One of my choices came out as digitally self-published novel, but the top four made it into print, which suggests that, rightly or wrongly, the much-maligned traditional publishers don’t always get it wrong.

5 – Sparkle by Rudy Yuly
 
Joe Jones and his severely autistic brother Eddie – a pair echoing Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men – make up a firm who have the grisly task of cleaning up crime scenes. Joe’s whole life is based round keeping Eddie safe, while making a precarious living from his autistic brother’s bizarre and obsessive cleanliness. Joe is tired, permanently at his wit’s end, and his social life is a car-crash, but when Eddie discovers something at a murder scene which defies logical explanation and then becomes fixated by a gentle female zoo attendant, Joe’s tolerance is stretched to the limit. Sparkle‘s plot initially requires some suspension of disbelief, but as well as being a terrific whodunnit the book is an absorbingly written account of a condition which lies somewhere between an affliction and a gift. There is a real surprise at the end, which I certainly did not see coming.


Buy now on Amazon

Fiction Addict Reviews Story Merchant Client Larry D. Thompson's Dead Peasants

Dead Peasants by Larry D. Thompson
Posted by Josh Olds On November - 15 - 2012

Genre: Legal Thriller

Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books

Publication Date: 10/2/2012

Reviewed by Paul Pessolano

While the title Dead Peasants might bring to mind an medieval take of a murderous Queen, this novel by Larry Thompson is actually a legal thriller that deals with the shady practice of employers taking out insurance policies on individuals who no longer work for their company. The hope is that the employer can then collect on the individual’s death without them ever knowing about it. When high-profile lawyer Jack Bryant begins investigating a series of unexplained deaths, it appears that certain employers have taken the unscrupulous legal shenanigans to deadly lengths.

Bryant, fresh off of a stellar case, has decided to retire, move to his hometown of Forth Worth, and live off the money he’s made. He purchases a mansion and falls in love with his Realtor, but, due to some secret from her past, ignores his advances. But retired life is boring, leading Bryant to open up a pro-bono business. And that is when things begin to go awry. When one case leads them to dead bodies, it appears as if they are due to an employer to collect on his “dead peasants.”

This is a great story for those who like a good lawyer based book that has both courtroom drama and old fashion gum-shoe investigation.  The book is well written and suitable for any audience.

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AEI Client Royce Buckingham Featured on The New York Daily News Blog

Mischief, mayhem and minions: Author Royce Buckingham introduces readers to the life of a Demonkeeper

BY Wathira Nganga

Tsunamis that wipe out entire towns. Doors that creak when no one is there. Earthquakes that split the ground open. The world is full of uncontrollable phenomena, big and small, which threaten the order of civilization that humans have so carefully built up over millennia.

In Royce Buckingham’s most recent fantasy series, demons personify the chaos that plagues mankind. The three books in the series follow the adventures of Nat Grimlock, a young Demonkeeper.

Demonkeepers are a secret order that has been policing and controlling demons for centuries. 17-year-old Nat suddenly inherits the job after his mentor dies under mysterious circumstances. Soon afterward a powerful demon escapes from Nat’s basement in pursuit of a homeless boy named Ritchie.

Nat’s race to recapture the rogue demon and save Ritchie in time sets in motion a bizarre series of events that sends Nat from the streets of Seattle to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Along the way he meets some allies as well as foes, including a vengeful Demonkeeper, known only as “the Thin Man,” who’s after his position.

In “Demonkeeper” and its sequels “Demoneater” and “Demonocity,” Buckingham has not created an alternate fantasy world, but a fantastical view of the mundane, where rust demons consume metal and demons in the form of sculptures come to life.

Demon encounters can be humorous, like the demon Gloop that can disguise itself as a booger, or deadly, like the water demon Drench that threatens to engulf the city of Seattle.

The human characters, however, are not always as clear cut as the demons. Buckingham does reveal Nat’s past throughout the trilogy, including the death of his parents and his natural ability to see demons when other humans can’t.

But the readers don’t know much about his love interest Sandy, or the street boy Ritchie. Ritchie at least seems to mirror Nat’s personal story, at least from the little Buckingham reveals about him. He has had the ability to see demons from an early age. But how he ended up on the streets, or any part of his life before the action in “Demonkeeper,” is a mystery.

Ritchie plays an extremely important role when he reminds Nat of his duty in the second book in the series, "Demoneater." When Nat realizes a wind demon called Flappy was the storm that killed his parents, he tries to take revenge. Ritchie calmly reminds him demons are only creatures of chaos with no will of their own.

“You taught me not to kill,” he says to Nat. “Even the dangerous ones. They know not what they do, right?”

Ritchie exhibits maturity as the series progresses, as do Sandy, who occasionally helps him catch a demon, and Lilli, a fellow Demonkeeper from San Francisco. Buckingham hints that they all have fascinating backgrounds, which are in most part kept hidden from the reader.

Although the demons do create chaotic situations for their human keepers to create suspense and drive the plot forward, Nat’s friends could have had more depth if the reader knew their full stories. “Demonkeeper” and its sequels is a good fit for middle-grade readers who love urban fantasy and….did anybody hear that door creak?

Royce Buckingham answered a few questions for Page Views about his work:

Page Views: When did you first realize you wanted to write fantasy novels?

Royce Buckingham: I was traumatized by Jaws and Alien on the big screen as a kid. As I grew older, I learned that things that invoked strong emotion were artistically inspiring. Love. Rebellion. Despair. Heartbreak. For me, unfortunately, the strong emotion from my youth was abject terror. So now I write monster stories.

Add to the mix that I was also an old school Dungeons and Dragons nerd in the 70’s. I think the idea that I could create my own stories started with creating my own monstrous adventures in the medieval world of D&D.

PV: Demons are usually depicted as evil beings in religious works and popular culture. How did you come up with the idea to make them not good or evil, but personifications of chaos?

RB: Great question! “Demonkeeper”was inspired by a street kid I used to prosecute in juvenile court. I imagined the chaos of the streets as a monster that would eat him up, as it does with so many lost children. The generalized theory that demons are born of chaos grew from there.

I purposefully stayed away from “devils” and any religious connotations.Ironically, and sadly (for me), my care was for naught. At its peak of sales in the U.S., “Demonkeeper” was considered for the Scholastic Book Fair circuit, which would have taken the novel’s exposure up to the next level.

But Scholastic, in its wisdom, felt the word “Demon” in the title was not appropriate for schools (Demons = evil = bad = devils = Satan = some parent complaining without reading the book). So the title alone eliminated about a zillion fans (and an entire income stream). Whoosh, right out the window.

Of course, now Scholastic Book Fairs carry The Hunger Games, where kids massacre each other. But hey…it’s a crazy, senseless semi-art industry, and barely missing the big score is part of the fun, right? (insert boo-hooing here).

PV: Did stories of witches and witch burnings inform your narrative of the Demonkeepers’ backgrounds, particularly the hostility they usually encounter when people learn they handle demons?

RB: I haven’t really gone the persecution route. I mention it as a historical obstacle for early Demonkeepers, but I haven’t given it much page time in the contemporary setting. But I should! Great idea! The history certainly informs the narrative in the sense that it keeps our Keepers quite secretive about their profession.

PV: Ritchie is as important a character as Nat, yet the reader doesn’t really find out his back story. Did you want to focus more on Nat as a protagonist than on Nat and Ritchie as a team?

RB: I am mostly Nat-centric in “Demonkeeper” (and “Demoneater”/ “Demonocity”), but I did give Ritchie his own character arc to play with. I am experimenting and trying to figure out how many points of view makes a good story. Although, now that I’m reading Game of Thrones, I figure as many as you want is fine, so long as you can wrangle them.

PV: Do Sandy’s parents, who don’t appear in the stories, ever wonder why she’s always gone for long periods of time when she’s helping Nat capture demons?

RB: Nice spot. That’s a kid-world device. Kid characters are often allowed to wander unsupervised in fiction, and I take advantage of that conceit. They probably wonder, but like the monotone parents in classic Charlie Brown, they probably don’t interfere.

PV: Movies often associate demons with possession and exorcisms. In Nat’s world, would a demon possession be possible? How would a Demonkeeper exorcise demons from a person?

RB: Sure. Chaos consumes The Thin Man in “Demonkeeper,” so he’s an example of exactly this concept. Order is the enemy of chaos. Introducing order into the life of a child (or adult) that is consumed by chaos can save them from going down that road to a destructive place. Note that not all chaos is bad in a person’s life (a little craziness makes life interesting), but too much can kill.

PV: The city of Seattle is the setting for most of the action in the “Demonkeeper” series. Have you lived in Seattle your whole life?

RB: I have lived in Seattle at times, but I grew up in eastern Washington by a nuclear plant, where my ghost story novel “The Dead Boys” is set. Currently, I am about an hour and a half north of Seattle and go into the city as often as possible for a busy father of two boys.

PV: If you were a Demonkeeper, where would you most like to travel to find demons?

RB: I love the ancient demons, so Germany, England and old Europe. If I knew more about the Far East, I’d go there. If I was on the job, I’d look in war-torn countries where they have the most chaos.

PV: Some demonic manifestations are things like lamps or pieces of furniture. Since demons have been around at least as long as humans, would “household” demons appear as more period appropriate objects over time?

RB: Absolutely. The demonic butter churn is a good example. Who knows what sort of havoc that could wreak! The original flying broom was a demon, and the keeper seen wrangling it was unfairly deemed a witch and burned, drowned, or both.

PV: Will there be more “Demonkeeper” books to come? Any chance of a prequel about previous Demonkeepers?

RB: “Demoneater” and “Demonocity” are now out on Kindle. I believe they are $1 and $4, so they are a great bargain. I wrote some prequel material for “Demoneater,” but it didn’t make it into the final version. The trilogy is complete at this time, but I’d be open to writing a full prequel novel in the DK series.

PV: Are you working on any other stories outside of the “Demonkeeper” series?

RB: Good golly, yes! I have my YA thriller “The Terminals” with St. Martin’s Press coming out in 2013 or 2014. I’m also writing an adult legal thriller for St. Martin’s. And I have finished a 500 page medieval fantasy “Mapper” for Random House in Germany that will be out in summer of 2013 in Germany. Can’t wait to find a buyer for “Mapper” stateside and share it will all of my fans here at home!

Clint Hill Has a Street Named After Him at S.S. Training Center

With Lisa McCubbin

STORY MERCHANT CLIENT DENNIS WALSH'S NOBODY WALKS STELLAR REVIEW ON KIRKUS

NOBODY WALKS Bringing My Brother's Killers to Justice 

Author: Walsh, Dennis M.
Review Issue Date: December 1, 2012
Pages: 304 Price ( Hardcover ): $26.99
Publication Date: February 5, 2013
ISBN ( Hardcover ): 978-1-250-00548-9
Category: Nonfiction

 Pulpy, engrossing account of losing a family member to a senseless murder and retribution delivered through the criminal justice system. Attorney Walsh was the only one among his four brothers to follow the straight-and-narrow path, perhaps due to the example set by their father, a Cleveland cop turned mobster. But none of them were prepared for the death of Chris, the youngest, at the hands of fellow denizens of the meth-and-gangs subculture on the fringes of Southern California’s pornography business. Walsh lived a sibling’s nightmare, asked to identify Chris’ decaying body. Street gossip quickly pinpointed the killer, David Steinberg, Chris’ former roommate, who was an associate of white supremacist prison gangs. Despite fears that he might pre-emptively sabotage eventual prosecution, Walsh began sniffing around Chris’ friends, a motley group of drug users, porn stars and entertainment-industry hangers-on. Many agreed to cooperate with him, given the implied threat of his more criminally inclined brothers’ thirst for vengeance. The narrative is sensibly straightforward, following the turns as police, prosecutors and Walsh make efforts to gather evidence on, arrest and successfully prosecute Steinberg and his cronies. As the author himself might agree, he is in some ways too close to the material. The narrative is populated by a surfeit of underworld figures who don’t really come alive as fully developed characters, but instead seem caricatures of seamy decrepitude. Still, Walsh captures the arc of his family’s involvement in an act of senseless malice, calling into question the cultural endurance of macho violence within certain subcultures and the difficulty of holding men responsible for horrific acts within the legal system’s overtaxed framework. Gritty, effective, personalized tale of the outlaw lifestyle and its consequences.

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NEW DISCIPLINE FROM JEFF RIVERA FREE TO STORY MERCHANT FRIENDS

Success as a writer is 90% work and 10% talent.  No matter how talented you are, if you do not do the work, if you do not roll up your sleeves, none of your dreams for greatness as a writer can ever come true. That's just reality.

The challenge is that today's writer is, quite frankly, distracted. It goes beyond simply wanting to wash your windows and walk the dog instead of writing.

Nowadays, the biggest time zapper is the Internet. Whether it's Facebook, Twitter or checking your email 400 times a day, every second you're playing on the Internet is one step further from your goal as a writer. In my book, A Writer's Time: Making the Time to Write, I talk about how imperative this step is.

That's why when I was introduced to a new tool my good friend Jeff Rivera is beta-testing, I had to share it with you. It is a software that will prevent you from using the Internet without finishing your daily word count. 

If you're serious about your commitment to writing, I highly recommend it. 

Download  Write the Damn Thing now!

Gabookguy Reviews Dead Peasants

“Dead Peasants” by Larry D. Thompson
published by Thomas Dunne Books.

Category – Mystery/Thriller

When I first saw the title of this book I thought it must be the story of a medieval King killing off his serfs.  The term “dead peasants” is actually a legal insurance term for when an employer takes out an insurance policy on his workers and continues to pay the premiums even after his dismissal or retirement.  The employer hopes to collect the benefits upon the person’s death.  This practice has been deemed illegal in most states.

Jack Bryant is a high profile lawyer who has just won a monumental decision that will allow him to retire.  He moves back to his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas.

He purchases a mansion and falls in love with his realtor but the relationship must remain plutonic as his realtor is hiding something from her past.

Jack finds life a little boring and opens up a “pro bono” business.  One of these cases has Jack, his son, and his realtor looking into several unexplained deaths in the surrounding area.  They all seem to have a common thread and several attempts are made on their lives.

This is a great story for those who like a good lawyer based book that has both courtroom drama and old fashion “gum shoe” investigation. The book is well written and suitable for any audience.

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12-12-12

A signed copy on this once in a lifetime date!

THE PERFECT HOLIDAY GIFT

HARD COVER $25, SOFT COVER $15

To order write to: drwarrenwoodruff@comcast.net

We will mail your copies with an invoice.

Please include your address, and how you’d like your books signed.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!

NEW DISCIPLINE FROM JEFF RIVERA FREE TO STORY MERCHANT FRIENDS

Success as a writer is 90% work and 10% talent.  No matter how talented you are, if you do not do the work, if you do not roll up your sleeves, none of your dreams for greatness as a writer can ever come true. That's just reality.

The challenge is that today's writer is, quite frankly, distracted. It goes beyond simply wanting to wash your windows and walk the dog instead of writing.

Nowadays, the biggest time zapper is the Internet. Whether it's Facebook, Twitter or checking your email 400 times a day, every second you're playing on the Internet is one step further from your goal as a writer. In my book, A Writer's Time: Making the Time to Write, I talk about how imperative this step is.

That's why when I was introduced to a new tool my good friend Jeff Rivera is beta-testing, I had to share it with you. It is a software that will prevent you from using the Internet without finishing your daily word count. 

If you're serious about your commitment to writing, I highly recommend it. 

Download  Write the Damn Thing now!

Book Daily's Today's Emerging Author Features The Messiah Matrix ... Read Sample Chapter

The Messiah Matrix

Anyone passing Ryan McKeown, S.J., on his morning walk down Rome’s Janiculum, would have witnessed a worried-looking young man with dark shadows under his eyes. His usual composed countenance had disappeared and his furrowed brow revealed the burden he now bore. Images of the penitent’s death plagued him, more so because of the man’s extraordinary confession and enigmatic last words, “Find Father Ryan…memory in ashes of Jasius…in the Gesù.” Why did this mysterious monsignor use his last breath to deliver this strange message to his killer? What was he trying to tell me?

It was appalling even to entertain the thought that Holy Mother Church might have ordered the killing of a monsignor. It was just too horrible to contemplate. Surely the Albanian was mistaken?

Not only was he wrestling with the shock of dual murders but Ryan’s doubts about his faith now consumed his every waking moment and haunted his nights. It was mind versus spirit, and the mind threatened to destroy every feeling his spirit flourished on. Ryan’s mind was filled with a jumble of questions in a jumble of languages—English, commendably fluent Italian, and an ancient dialect insiders would readily identify as the vulgar Latin spoken almost exclusively at the highest ecclesiastical levels in Vatican City.

The names flashing through his brain—Eusebius, Philo Judaeus, Lactantius, Origen, Tertullian—were an esoteric litany of historians, poets, biblical scholars, and philosophers—all from the infancy of Christianity. Ryan’s obsession with tracking down the origins of the Catholic faith permeated his consciousness.

The area spanned by Via Garibaldi was a living postcard of tiled roofs, bell towers, cupolas and gardens set off in breathtaking contrast against the cloudless turquoise sky. But this morning the young American priest, lost in ruminations about the fateful confession and his biblical doubts, had been oblivious to the spectacular view--and to the breeze ruffling his curly brown hair to more than usual disarray. It would be difficult to recognize Ryan as a recently ordained priest in his casual street clothes and comfortable black Reeboks, much less one enrolled in the pontifically authorized Society of Jesus, known to the world as “Jesuits.”

Ryan’s questions about troubling inconsistencies in traditional Catholic doctrine had only grown more confusing as he’d turned from his graduate studies of the Latin epic poet Virgil to a temporary stint teaching a course on early Christian theology at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. At that time he was a Jesuit scholastic, getting in-the-classroom experience, and testing the demands of his calling. Now that his priesthood had been consecrated through the sacrament of Holy Orders and he had been dispatched to the Eternal City to study the New Testament and its commentaries, Father McKeown’s personal doubts and scholarly perplexities were, he feared, all too close to becoming a neurotic disorder.

“How can I accept ordination with all this uncertainty?” he’d once asked his confessor, a functional octogenarian alcoholic, one of the cadre of emeriti that staffed the Woodstock seminary.

“How do you feel about your faith?” the old man asked.

“I feel wonderful,” Ryan admitted. “When I smell the incense in the presence of the Holy Sacrament, I feel…holy…I feel right.”

“Then act as if you were certain,” the old priest had advised. “It is a corollary of Pascal’s wager. There’s no such thing in this world as absolute certainty. So accept that and go forward acting toward the best outcome no matter what.”

As the days before his ordination became cluttered with crucial commitments and endless ceremonies, Ryan found he had no more time to entertain his uncertainties. The trouble with me, he ruminated, is that I’ve always had too little time—for everything. Things just keep happening before I’ve got them figured out. He’d always wished there could be an off-calendar eighth day of the week to do nothing but consolidate what you actually think, hopefully believe, and truly feel.

It was all, to Ryan, a bit overwhelming—especially for a young man who was still intent on figuring out, one piece at a time, the immense puzzle that was the Roman Catholic Church, the religion into which he had been involuntarily baptized as an infant, willy-nilly confirmed as an adolescent, and hesitantly ordained as a priest of its most militant order.

Now it was too late, as far as the priesthood was concerned. He had been confirmed in that direction and, following his old confessor’s advice, determined to make the best of it. To his grateful surprise, even after his ordination his immediate superiors not only encouraged him to continue following his scholarly nose investigating the origins of the Church, but had also mysteriously arranged the residency in Rome.

Whenever his scholarly path seemed to disappear before his eyes, he returned to the simple basic questions that had inspired this quest: How could it be that Theophilus, one of the earliest Christian apologists, wrote nearly 30,000 words about Christianity without once mentioning Jesus Christ? How come the name “Jesus Christ,” in fact, doesn’t appear in any Greek or Latin author until after the Council of Nicaea? Why was it that the only near-contemporary account that mentioned Christ, a suspiciously precise paragraph known as the Testimonium Flavianum, in Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews, had been proved to be a patent insertion into that historical narrative? How could Jesus have been born in 1 A.D. when the Gospels say he was born before Herod the Great died—and King Herod’s death could be pinpointed to 4 B.C.? Even Philip Cardinal Vasta, now known to the world as Pope Pius XIII, had lamented that the greatest obstacle for spreading the Catholic faith today was that the historical existence of Jesus could no longer be made credible. If Ryan could somehow find a way to stamp a measure of documented authenticity on the career of the Church’s founder, he would be serving the Holy Father as well as his own wavering vocation. If he could make that tangible contribution to the church, he might justify his own doubt-ridden existence and give himself a break.

If he could find evidence to prove objectively that Jesus really existed as a human being, he’d be able to reconcile all the contradictions. Without that proof certain—that had eluded scholars for some two thousand years—every thread of the tapestry of biblical scholarship became just another loose end and his profession based on an allegory at best, at worst, a phantom.

Continues...

Clint Hill

Suspense Magazine Reviews Story Merchant Client Dennis M. Walsh's Nobody Walks

“Nobody Walks: Bringing My Brother’s Killers to Justice” by Dennis M. Walsh

Every once in a great while, a true crime is written that pulls at the heartstrings, while it also provides a tale of suspense that will be remembered for a good long time. This is that story.

The complete and utter anguish of a family that loses a son and brother is the subject that this author takes on. Being a criminal defense attorney, Mr. Walsh valiantly tells the story in true ‘Technicolor,’ of his youngest brother’s death and how the family came together, stayed within the law and were able to bring the killers to justice.
It was 2003, when Christopher Walsh was found in a storage locker stuffed into a trash can. As most often happens, the murder investigation slowed down and almost came to a standstill. It took seven long months for the authorities to file charges, and many years to get the case to trial.

When the body was first found, Dennis Walsh announced to one and all that he would keep his brother’s murder alive and not let it become a cold case. And truer words had never been spoken. As the story unfolds, readers see that the Walsh family was close, but unfortunately the father—once a policeman—left the force and got involved with the underworld along with the rest of his sons, except for Dennis. It seems that Dennis was the only son who did not turn to an unsavory path that would make him a criminal. Perhaps that was fate working, considering Dennis took the job of solving his brother’s murder upon his shoulders, and went from suspect to suspect asking questions, becoming one with the jail birds and the people who put them there, without breaking the law.

This is a very heart-wrenching story of a family that made sure justice was served, and readers will find themselves rooting for Dennis from the very beginning.

Brett Battle's New Novel Ashes Now Available!

NOW OUT Project Eden No. 4 ASHES

ASHES | Project Eden No. 4 The Saga Continues... The hammer has fallen. The deadly Sage Flu has been unleashed. The scramble for survival is in full force. Martina Gable and her family escaped to a secluded mountain cabin in hopes of avoiding the death sweeping the desert valley below, but have they gone far enough? Dominic Ray, manager of a tropical, private island resort, has a dream job. The weather, the food, the drinks, the people—life couldn't be better. What he didn’t expect—what no one could have expected—was that his good life was about to disappear. In a sea of the sick and dying, Sanjay and Kusum desperately search for a place beyond Mumbai where they and the group they are leading can be safe, and where they can prepare for what the future may bring. Brandon Ash wants nothing more than to be with his father and sister, but there is something waiting for him on a deserted, snow-covered highway. Something that may mean the reunion will never happen. As Daniel Ash, Brandon's father, lies unconscious from the serious wounds he suffered while hunting for his son, his daughter Josie realizes it's up to her to find her brother and bring him home. But the search will be a dangerous one, that will take her far from home. And then there is Project Eden, watching the plague kill as they had planned, even as they prepare to activate the next phase. What will you do to survive? Ashes is best read after completing volumes 1-3 (Sick, Exit 9, and Pale Horse) Where to find ASHES: Kindle US  •  Nook  Kindle UK  •  Kindle Germany • Kindle France  Kindle Spain  •  Kindle Italy • Kindle Japan Check Amazon and Barnes & Noble in the  next week or so for the trade paperback version.