Hamilton Swoop Wizard of Green Ridge by L. Stewart Hearl

In Hamilton Swoop Wizard of Green Ridge, Hamilton is summoned to the Center City Wizard’s Guild, where he revisits his past, then discovers his amazing magical destiny. What can a powerless Wizard like Hamilton do about it?






Mr. Hearl is a freelance writer and has been published nationally as well as He writes a regular column for a local Mensa newsletter, InforMensa. Hamilton Swoop Wizard of Green Ridge is his first published novel. He owns several cats. None of them is named "Whiskers" and, he claims, none can "talk".


This entertaining read, written with both intelligence and humor, is appropriate for both adults and teens.


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Charlotte Phillips is the co-author of the Eva Baum Detective Series, 2009 President for The Final Twist Writers Group and contributor to multiple blogs. Learn more about Charlotte and her books at:

MarkandCharlottePhillips.com

News, Views and Reviews Blog

Gift Book Recommendation- One Small Victory

Here at the Blood Red Pencil, we are making recommendations for books that would make good holiday gifts. There have already been some good books introduced, and I have several that I will be reviewing later this month. It is much easier for me to rave about someone else’s book, than my own, but I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to introduce you to the book of my heart. One Small Victory

This story was inspired by a woman of great courage and I think readers will enjoy her story of victory.

SHORT SYNOPSIS

Life can change in just an instant. That's the harsh reality that Jenny Jasik faces when her son is killed in an automobile accident, but never in her wildest dreams did she ever expect to be working undercover as a member of a drug task force. She is, after all, just a mom. But don’t discount what a mom can do when the safety of her children is at stake.

REVIEW SNIPPETS

“One Small Victory is an amazing, heart pounding, emotional tale about one mother's love of her children, and the steps she takes to protect them from harm.” Jennifer Lawrence for Amazon.com **** FOUR STARS

“One Small Victory is great Romantic Suspense and a read you won't want to miss.” Victoria Kennedy, Midwest Book Reviews

“One Small Victory is not for the faint of heart, but it is an excellent, well-crafted novel. The tension is all pervasive, and heat, rage, sorrow, despair, and all-enveloping terror fill every page.” Carolyn Crisher for Romance Reviews Today

"A compelling read of a grieving mother's crusade to rid the streets of her home town of drugs, and those who lure our children into addiction." Laura Castoro, author of Icing on the Cake & Love on the Line

“One Small Victory is one huge win for author Maryann Miller and her readers. This is a novel that rings sadly true as readers follow a mother's journey from the depths of grief and loss through menacing territory ruled by street gangs and drug lords. Miller's done a masterful job of creating interesting, sometimes quirky but always believable characters and in weaving a story sure to be a favorite among lovers of mysteries and countless other genres.” Paula Stallings Yost, Editor/Author, What Wildness is This: Women Write About the Southwest, Editor, StoryCircleBookReviews,

“One Small Victory is a riveting journey through fear, love, and a woman's determination to make things better.”
Slim Randles, author of Sun Dog Days, Raven’s Prey and the syndicated humor column, Home Country.

"The writing is eloquent, and the story is well plotted, and I would recommend this book to anybody who is interested in crime novels and human drama." BCF Book Reviews

Special Holiday offer: The book can be ordered through my Website at a discount, and part of the proceeds will go to a woman’s rehab center in East Texas. Details HERE

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Posted by Maryann Miller, who hates to toot her own horn, but, hey, somebody’s got to.

Notes from a NaNoWriMo Newbie

This is my first time participating in the National Novel Writing Month challenge to write 50,000 words in a month. Fifty thousand is a phrase to inspire fear and trepidation in any writer—unless you are a hard-core disciplinarian and write that much every month already.

Break it down. How many words do I have to write in a day? 1,666—oooh, that’s a sinister number. A lot of words—yikes!

How many pages is that? Maybe that’s a bite that easier to digest. If you go with the common estimate of 250 words per page, that's six and a half pages. Well, that doesn’t sound too bad, does it? But…some days I struggle to eke out a couple of pages to meet my deadline of meeting with my critique group.

OK, all my objections aside, I signed up to help give myself a deadline, a virtual kick in the pants, and hopefully to develop a better daily writing discipline. So far, I haven’t met the daily goal, but I have been writing every day. That’s better than I was doing before! Maybe, if I quit procrastinating and dig in every day, I’ll eventually hit the 1600+ word-a-day goal! And even if I don’t make the 50,000 words in a month, I’ll be farther ahead than if I’d stuck to my hit-or-miss schedule.

One hint: If you get stuck at a certain place, jump ahead and write a scene in the future, or write the end. Sometimes that frees up the block and gives you ideas about how to fill in the blanks between.

Good luck to all the NaNo participants!

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A native Montanan, Heidi Thomas now lives in Northwest Washington. She has just had her first novel published, Cowgirl Dreams, based on her grandmother. Heidi has a degree in journalism, a certificate in fiction writing and is a member of Northwest Independent Editors Guild. She teaches writing and edits, and is working on the next books in her “Dare to Dream” series, and blogs.

Engaging Books for the History Lover

The following two books each stake their claim at a fascinating juncture of history and geography. One is a fictionalized biography set on the American frontier and the other is a memoir of Eastern European life during Word War II. I am proud to say I had some influence in their development. Don't let the self-published status hold you back—you'll remember each of these characters for some time to come.

Charley's Choice: The life and times of Charley Parkhurst

By Fern J. Hill

Infinity Publishing; $10.85

This title won the 2009 WILLA award for historical fiction, a prize given annually for outstanding literature featuring women’s stories set in the west. While I did not edit the book, I was one of Fern's critique partners during its development.

It is an imaginative piecing together of the few facts known about a California gold rush era stagecoach driver, who, upon death, was discovered to be a woman. Charley Parkhurst ran away from an orphanage determined to drive a stage coach, a life unattainable for a young woman of that time. This did not stop her. Binding her breasts, speaking in a husky tone, and picking up work around horses where she could, she eventually drove a six-up in a career that spanned Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Georgia, and California. A member of the all male Independent Order of Odd Fellows, gruff old Charley was the first woman to vote in California during the 1868 federal election—fifty-three years before women won the right to vote.

What I love most about this book: the voice. Fern gives Charley Parkhurst a voice so frisky that you can’t believe she’s been dead for more than a century and a half. You can feel the broken-in leather of her driving gloves and smell the manure clinging to her boots and see the determined set of her jaw as she finds a way to buck discrimination against the "weaker sex." I’m proud of Fern for resurrecting this remarkable character. You won’t forget Charley, and what she sacrificed to live a life of her own design.

The Winding Path to Freedom: A memoir of life in the Ukrainian Underground

By Roman D. Mac

BookSurge; $17.99

This is the kind of triumph over adversity story that you wish didn’t have to be true. As a young boy in Ukraine, Roman witnessed the upheaval of life in his native Molodych as World War II began. By the age of twelve, his father already murdered by the Communists, his family dissolved, and the threat of enslavement in a Nazi labor camp imminent, he became the youngest member of the Ukrainian underground, serving as a scout, special courier, and often as a terrain operational leader during armed conflict. This sometimes required he spend long stretches of time underground in one-man bunkers while awaiting further instructions. Even at that tender age he understood the stakes: to win the freedom of Ukraine or die trying.

Four years later, after the forced resettlement of his villagers to Poland's Recovered Territories and still wanted by the Communists for his underground activities, Mac and several comrades walked all the way through Poland and Czechoslovakia to West Germany's American Zone, where they laid down their arms. He immigrated to the United States in 1950, but the loss of a constant adversary to push against proved a stumbling block. He joined in the US Army, eventually graduated from college, married, and established a business manufacturing accessories for musical instruments in Bethlehem, PA.

It was a pleasure to edit Roman’s story—which had already been published in Ukrainian and Russian—and adapt it for the American market. (Who ever thought those seven years of taking Russian would come in handy.)

What I love most about this book: Roman’s resilient spirit, which shines through on every page. That and the fact that I have read it at least five times and cried at the end every single time.

Click on Roman’s name link (above, beneath the book cover and title) to see the amazing web site he built for this book. If the music and the passages from the book move you the way they did me, buy it.

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Kathryn Craft is a developmental editor at Writing-Partner.com. Nurturing the birth of great literature is both her work and her joy. May you take time to read many good books in the upcoming holiday season!

Ask the Editor About Submitting Manuscripts

Question: Which is the best way to send manuscripts to publishers? Email or snail mail?

Submitted by: Amber Rigby Grosjean
Author of Cursed Blood, Stolen Identity, and Spawn of the Curse (one more on its way)
Visit Amber's website and blog for more information about her books.


Amber, Thanks for sending your question to Ask the Editor. When it comes to submitting manuscripts, the choice is rarely the author's to make. Each agent and publisher/editor will have specific submission guidelines which they expect authors to follow if they want their work read. My own publisher is a good example. Five Star accepts mystery and romance/women’s fiction manuscripts only through its acquisitions firm, Tekno. Manuscripts must be sent as Word attachments to an e-mail, strictly formatted to Five Star/Tekno’s requirements.

Here are the links to the submission guidelines for agent Janet Reid and mystery publisher Midnight Ink:

Janet Reid, Literary Agent
Midnight Ink (publisher)

Although there are many places to find these guidelines, such as Writer’s Market, it’s always best to confirm you have the most up-to-date information by going to the agent’s or publisher’s website.

If authors fail to submit according to those published guidelines, it's possible their submissions will be discarded, deleted, or returned unread.

If you have concerns about the security of postal mailing versus e-mailing manuscripts, let us know as that could be a separate Ask the Editor topic.

Thanks again for submitting a question to Ask the Editor. We hope you visit The Blood-Red Pencil often.

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Patricia Stoltey is a mystery author, blogger, and critique group facilitator. Active in promoting Colorado authors, she also helps local unpublished writers learn the critical skills of manuscript revision and self-editing. For information about Patricia’s Sylvia and Willie mystery series, visit her website and her blog.

Prairie Dog Cowboy by V. Gilbert Zabel

Buddy wanted to be a Cowboy, one that rode a horse, not herd cows by foot. When the neighboring rancher, Caleb Hyman, told the boy he would be hired once he could lasso prairie dogs, Buddy worked and practiced for years to be able to catch one.

The day he finally roped one of the quick rodents, two of his older brother's friends watched from the road and ridiculed Buddy, calling him a prairie dog cowboy. Their ridicule never stopped, even after Buddy became a cowboy and broke horses.

Facing the hard life of homesteading in the late 1890s and early 1900s, Buddy didn't have an easy life, made worse by a mother who didn't love him or accept him. However, with the help of the Hymans, he developed into a strong, decent person who struggled to find his place in his world.

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Vivian Zabel always has had a vivid imagination and, when a child, used it to tell her siblings and friends stories. As soon as she could write, she began to put those stories on paper. I, for one, am glad she did. I thoroughly enjoyed this coming-of-age YA novel, as did my nine-year-old nephew.

In Prairie Dog Cowboy (ISBN-13: 9780979751370), Vivian Zabel gives us a feel for life on the ranch, a gripping story with loveable and memorable characters, and life lessons on perseverance in the face of adversity.

Prairie Dog Cowboy will make a great gift for cowpokes of all ages, but especially for tweens and young teens.

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Charlotte Phillips is the co-author of the Eva Baum Detective Series, 2009 President for The Final Twist Writers Group and contributor to multiple blogs. Learn more about Charlotte and her books at:

MarkandCharlottePhillips.com

News, Views and Reviews Blog

Need Help With Plotting?

Slim Randles is a syndicated columnist and author, and his work is featured on WinnsboroToday.com, the online community magazine where I am Managing Editor. He has graciously allowed me to use one of his recent columns here, and I hope you enjoy his take on plotting...

Dud was in a quandary. It was all about Randy Jones and Katie Burchell. There was something so … exquisite about them finding each other and walking around town holding hands. Exquisite, that was the word.

Dud Campbell pulled the tiny notebook out of his back pocket and wrote down: “Randy and Katie, exquisite.”

He’d read this article about writing where it said you should keep a notebook and jot down an idea when it hit you. That way, you won’t have to wonder, “What was that word I had that described Randy and Katie walking around town holding hands.”

And, the article said, you don’t worry about a plot, but you just keep making notes. Make notes and when you fill one book, put it in a drawer and start on another. Before you know it, a plot will come along, and you’ll be ready to write it.

Dud loved reading these articles, because he knew if he just followed the suggestions, his murder mystery about the duchess and the truck driver would eventually take care of itself. If he just had some insight on what happened between Randy and Katie, he’d be able to do a flashback thingie to let his readers know how a duchess and a truck driver found happiness in each other’s arms.

On the surface, a truck driver and a duchess don’t seem to have a lot in common, but he’d been working on that, too. He had several ideas jotted down in the notebook: books they enjoyed reading, watching old movies on television, polka dancing. He wasn’t sure that duchesses liked polka dancing, but he was pretty sure truck drivers didn’t like waltzes, and that’s all you saw duchesses doing.

Dud had some time, so he followed the young couple from a block away, hoping his keen senses would discern the hidden secret to this relationship. He saw them smile on small children and butterflies, their smiles beaming a benediction and blessing on all they met, as though they were pilgrims on a quest for eternal secrets.

Hey, that was pretty good. He whipped out the notebook again and leaned against a mailbox to write it down.

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Brought to you by “Sun Dog Days,” by Slim Randles, now available at http://www.unmpress.com/. --------- Slim Randles Web site

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Posted by Maryann Miller who is so thankful that Slim shares his wit and wisdom with the readers of WinnsboroToday.com. Visit Maryann's Web site for information about her books and her editing services. If you have a good book, she can help you make it better. When she is not working, Maryann loves to play "farmer" on her little ranch in the beautiful Piney Woods of East Texas.