I’m not saying it was aliens….

NOW AVAILABLE!!

What Really Happened…

Swamp gas?

Weather balloons?

Ball lightning?

That couldn’t really have been an atmospheric reflection of Venus, could it?

Heck no!

We’re not saying it was aliens, but…


20 stories about What Really Happened

Edited by Sheila Hartney

Executive Editor Sam Knight

Stories by:

Kay Hanifen, C. D. Kester, Julia C. Lewis, Lou J Berger, Margaret Karmazin, Eldon Litchfield, Chad Barger, DW Milton, Christopher Blinn, Sheila Hartney, J. Edward Gregal, Dana Bell , Michael W. Clark, Fulvio Gatti, John M. Campbell, Damien Mckeating, Al Simmons, L.N. Hunter, Z. M. Renick, and lastly, YOURS TRULY, Lyndi Alexander

Here is the Universal Book Link : https://books2read.com/u/m2608G

GET YOUR COPY NOW….BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!!!

When zombies aren’t the worst thing after you…. K. A. Raines

Welcome to Lyndi’s Adventurous Friend K.A. Raines!

Title: The Infiltrator

Author: K. A. Raines

Genre/heat rating: Dystopian romance/4

Blurb: A virus has rendered humanity mostly extinct. Keira Starr is alone, staying alive by staying on the run, sleeping in empty gas stations and the trunks of cars long abandoned on the highway. The world is overrun by “Ghosts,” the mindless, bloodthirsty dead, but they are the least of her problems. She is being hunted by ragtag groups of ruthless men, independent contractors working for a mysterious human trafficking ring. When she is finally captured, she discovers that Derrick Caine, despite his gruff demeanor and appearance, may just have a different agenda altogether.

Excerpt:

“What happened to you?” she breathed. “Who did you lose?” She knew she was pushing him, that she should stop before she went too far, but it felt like observing a train wreck, watching from a distance as the engine rushed ahead at full steam, and, even foreseeing the impending disaster on the tracks, being powerless to stop it. “You risk your life tryin’ to save women and children. Who was she? Your wife?” She didn’t even know why she cared. She didn’t want to care. Derrick Caine was a virtual stranger to her, yet she knew she was already in way too deep.

He growled suddenly, a low, guttural sound that jarred her out of her trance when she rather unexpectedly found her space invaded by him for the third time in the past several minutes. Yet the charge in the air had shifted subtly; he no longer seemed angry, exactly, but there was something decidedly predatory in his eyes.

“You want from me?” His voice in her ear was a dangerous rumble that elicited chills up her spine and ignited a fire that bloomed hotly in her womb, a delicious contrast. Quite suddenly, all she wanted was to relieve the dull throb between her legs that his voice and presence evoked; she wanted him so badly that she physically couldn’t endure not to have him soon.

You. Just you. “I could ask the same of you,” she settled for, and she couldn’t stop the tremor in her voice. She was overwhelmed by him—by his nearness, by the heat emanating from his body, drawing her in. She tentatively raised a trembling hand, reaching up to touch a raised scar on his chest, just above his left pectoral. His chest continued to visibly rise and fall, and he was breathing hard through his nose in an obvious effort to calm himself, fists clenched in tight balls at his sides. His breathing hitched when she barely touched him, a feather-light caress, her fingertips just skimming the jagged edge of his scar. She had known all along that he was in pain. So much unbearable pain—yet he would never admit it to anyone, least of all her.

Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08CFRXZCS

Bio: K.A. Raines is a U.S. Navy veteran who lives in Longview, TX with her children and who has a passion for reading, writing, red wine, and good food. Her love for science fiction, the paranormal, and romance bleed into her writing.

Author links:

Twitter: twitter.com/KA_Raines

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100052614996318

Website:

karaines.com

Crossing America to save the country from supremacists #MFRWHooks

The Color of Fear series is topical and satisfying– the country is suffering from the aftermath of a deadly virus, and a group of young BIPOC is under attack from a a cult leader and white supremacist. But they have the herbs and seeds, brought by Tzu Lin Kwan all the way from Hong Kong. that may turn the tide and save the rest of those threatened by the now-mutating virus.

Xi San saved the life of a mysterious girl one night in his ravaged San Francisco neighborhood. He can’t get her out of his mind, but believes that she’s lost to him.

Lin Kwan came to America to bring her scientist father Chinese medicinal herbs, hoping to stop the virus that killed most of the world’s Caucasians before it mutates to infect the rest of the world. On her way to finding him, she meets again the man who once saved her, a man she can’t forget.

With a diverse group of fellow travelers, they head for St. Louis, where civilization is being rebuilt. Between them and safety, danger lurks—Gabriel, a self-styled religious leader and white supremacist, who has organized his army from Upper Midwest survivalist and militia followers, determined to take revenge for the white man.

But Gabriel isn’t their only enemy. Before they reach their destination, they will battle nature, prejudice and even those hidden among them who wish their destruction.

EXCERPT:

“Oh, my God!” Valery squealed, staring at another brochure. “Look at this. We have so got to stay here.”

“Stay…here?” Kwan’s features tightened into a frown. “We have far to go—”

“Just for tonight, chica. Look, while I love looking at the stars, camping out with you, my aching bum also loves sleeping in a real bed.” She handed over the advertisement.

Kwan examined the photos of the cream-colored Victorian house with the blue trim, surrounded by flower gardens. It looked magical, like a castle built to attract the seven daughters of the Jade Emperor.

Valery jabbed her finger at the picture. “They’ve got a veranda. A real veranda.”

The word unfamiliar to her, Kwan deduced a veranda must be some sort of railed porch. “It also says high tea from eleven until two. It takes three hours to make tea? Quite a long ritual.”

Val laughed. “It doesn’t take three hours. High tea was a Brit tradition, you know. The rich used to eat meals a couple times a day, like, breakfast and dinner. About halfway through the day, the ladies would get faint from hunger and being squished by those damned corsets and so they started a tradition, more like what we’d call lunch.” She took the brochure back. “You know, they have, like, finger sandwiches—”

“Finger…sandwiches?” Kwan gasped. The thought brought flashbacks of the ocean voyage with Zhong. Then, people ate many things to survive.

“They don’t put real fingers in them, silly.” She pointed out the menu. “Kind of prissy ladies’ lunch with tea, fruit, scones…that stuff.” She sighed. “Although something tells me there won’t be table service today.”

Kwan considered the pictures of the three guest rooms, two with four-poster beds and cozy teddy bear themes, and the other a watercolor brush of white and pale blue with a sea motif. She hadn’t slept on such a soft mattress since before her parents had left Hong Kong. At her aunt’s, she had slept on a futon, and at the Hsus’, on a thick mat. The thought of a real bed appealed to her, too. Very much.

************************************************************************

Hop on to the other blogs and read more great excerpts!

https://www.linkytools.com/basic_linky_include.aspx?id=299080

Meet villain/neo-Nazi Gabriel–aka Bernard Ellison, disgraced pastor

A teaser for Thursdays: The opening to DESTINATIONS, the second book in the Color of Fear series. Meet villain Gabriel, the leader of the white supremacist cult:

Gabriel was God’s favorite angel.
Or so he liked to believe.
“He” being plain old Bernard Ellison, former ordained minister and woodworker, discarded by so many of his former associates and society. They’d laughed at him, reviled him and called him depraved.
Who was laughing now?
“Not a one of ‘em,” he muttered to himself.
He surveyed his current quarters, finding them lacking. The South Dakota farmhouse had been built more than a hundred years before. It creaked, its bones old and tired. Its white paint peeled and flaked away in the dusty wind like a heavy winter snow. Its chairs and thin cotton curtains smelled of mildew and mold. Dust coated the windowpanes and any surface that remained bare.
He’d been better provisioned in the survival bunker back in Great Falls, with its years’ worth of food, water and supplies to feed him and the rest of his Angels. They hid in safety, waiting out the worst of the Second Holocaust that had wiped out the majority of the white men and women in the country, then the world. Waiting till the air was clean, and he could breathe free again.
They’d done it, those crazy Ay-rab bastards. Them and the Asians that had given the terrorists the ship to bring that poison ‘cross the ocean. They’d come down on these United States of America and destroyed it all.
Six months he’d waited underground, constantly monitoring the airwaves for signs of recovery.
When news never came, he’d sent men out to test the situation. Once they started coming back alive, he’d decided it was safe.
Outside, he’d discovered vast tracts of Montana abandoned. He’d claimed it. Then, as he gathered more people, he moved them on through South Dakota, claiming more land.
Some “claiming” was easier than others. Several times, they’d found people of color—brown, red or yellow—on the land that had been given by God to white people. Gabriel had…persuaded…them to move along. Some went voluntarily; others became food for carrion birds.
So many towns and cities they found empty. Millions had died in the Second Holocaust. Millions.
But Gabriel had survived.
He knew he’d been spared for a reason.
Pausing by the window to survey his flock at work, Gabriel was pleased. They scurried about, maintaining the trucks, sorting equipment, obedient to their orders. His orders.
Daddy always said I wouldn’t amount to much.
A memory of his father—worn striped overalls, his weary gray eyes—came to mind. A small farmer living north of Atlanta, Frank Ellison had borrowed and borrowed to survive the droughts, the floods, until the bank had taken the farm. His father and mother had moved to the city, where his mother cleaned rooms at the Motel 6. Daddy just sat and stared out the window, imagining those green fields that would never be his again.
“Look how much land I have now, Daddy,” Gabriel whispered. “Are you proud of me yet? I’ll make you proud. I will.”

BUY LINKS:

Amazon   Barnes and Noble     Zumaya Publications

It’s almost here! DESTINATIONS

Coming to Armadillocon in Austin, Texas July 25-27, 2014!

The release of the second book in the Color of Fear Series–DESTINATIONS!

Xi San saved the life of a mysterious girl one night in his ravaged San Francisco neighborhood. He can’t get her out of his mind, but believes that she’s lost to him. When an old friend invites him to St. Louis, the new center of terrorist-decimated America, he leaves his old world behind.

Lin Kwan came to America to bring her scientist father Chinese medicinal herbs, hoping to stop the virus that killed most of the world’s Caucasians, before it mutates to infect the rest of the world. Following his trail, she meets the man who once saved her, and repays her debt.

Gathering diverse companions as they travel toward St. Louis, the two encounter deadly obstacles, including Gabriel, a self-styled religious leader and white supremacist determined to take revenge for the white man.

But Gabriel isn’t their only enemy. They have to battle nature, prejudice and even those hidden among them who wish their destruction.

Also available through Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com and other online sources.  From Zumaya Publications–get your copy soon!

Sometimes you just shouldn’t mess with the woman… SFFS for February 1

Today’s snippet comes from WIP JOURNEYS, the second volume in the Color of Fear series, that follows WINDMILLS. Lin Kwan and Valery Paz have started their trip east to find Kwan’s father in Cincinnati, carrying their precious medicine, but one of their traveling companions has come up on the losing end of a meeting with a rattlesnake. They stop in Holden, Utah to pick up some medicine at what they think is an abandoned drug store. But they’re not quite right about that:

***

The display came crashing over on top of Kwan, driven by a heavy male body that took her down. Her head hit the floor and she blinked dizzily, trapped under the man’s weight. Light flashed off the barrel of a gun in his right hand.

   She reached out almost instinctively, grabbed the gun from the inside of his grip with her left hand as she flexed her knee into his crotch. He pulled back and she planted her foot solidly in his midsection and pushed, squeezing her fingers tight on the gun, his momentum allowing her to pry it into her own hand. She slapped it into her right, pointing it at him.

   Surprised blue eyes locked with hers. “Now just take it easy, miss—”

   Another gun cocked, above them. Valery said, “No, chief, you take it easy—get your ass up and I won’t put a bullet in your head.”

***

If you’re interested in catching up on the first part of the story, you can find the sci-fi YA post-apocalyptic novel WINDMILLS at Amazon or Barnes and Noble .

Bio-terrorists release a plague in the United States that spreads to kill most of the world’s Caucasian population. As the deadly virus mutates, Tzu Shin, a renowned medical doctor and biologist, defects from China to help develop a cure. His only daughter, Lin Kwan, is left behind in Hong Kong with her aunt.

Then Kwan’s father summons her from across the sea to bring him Chinese medicinal herbs he needs to develop a cure. Lonely and missing her parents, she accepts the challenge, traveling with her sensei Li Zhong to the New World.

But a Chinese assassin is on her trail, determined to kill her and Li Zhong, and when Kwan discovers her father has disappeared, she sets out on a journey to find him and deliver her precious cargo, a quest that she may not survive.

Book two should be released some time this summer, and carries the story east as Kwan and her companions head for what remains of civilization in the east, perhaps St. Louis, Cincinnati or beyond, unaware that danger travels with her every step of the way.

A lesson in genetics–SFFS for May 11

More this week from A SMALL DEGREE OF HOPE, the science fiction romance coming out from Lyrical Press June 3– I’ll be looking for guest blog spots all month long, so if anyone is looking for a guest, please let me know!!

This snippet takes place after Kylie’s been captured by the alien reptiles:

The reptile with the healed wounds stepped closer, and in a raw croak, replied, “You humans assume you are superior.”

 It gestured at the other cage, where one of the women picked at the bloody food in the bowl and the other squatted in the corner of the cage, keening in a low pitch. “If you were truly evolved, your genetic material and ours should bond well. The toxins that fill your environment prevent evolution to our level.”

 Device in hand, it reached for the lock. Kylie kept talking, hoping to distract it.

“So it’s true that defects in our genes keep you from succeeding. Your virus isn’t strong enough to make the bond.”

 “We now modify human viruses in our effort, but even your viruses are substandard.”

“Well, screw you, friend.”

***

I’m not sure it’s going to like that. Danged uppity women.

Here’s the teaser for the book:

Even the smallest degree of hope can spark love.
Against her wealthy father’s demands, and the usual blockades of a male dominated profession, Kylie Sanderson proves worthy of her position as lead investigator of planet Andan’s Scientific and Investigative Research Taskforce. Someone is killing Andan’s women in an attempt to mutate them into reptiles. Kylie makes it her mission to discover who’s behind the murders and prevent more grotesque deaths.

Shapeshifting lizard Griff comes to Andan to stop his brethren from mutating other planets’ women into mindless breeding stock. Overcoming Kylie’s suspicious and defensive nature proves difficult, but he must in order to help the SIRT team thwart his planet’s scientists.

When Kylie is abducted and becomes the first human to survive the transformation, it’s up to Griff to rescue her so SIRT can restore her human form. On the run and desperate to unravel the mysteries of Kylie’s past to solve the crimes of their present, can she and Griff forge a future for themselves?

There are several other snippets listed at the SMALL DEGREE OF HOPE tab above, and an interview here at the blog home of Calisa Rhose. For more great science fiction and fantasy snippets from around the world, check out the SFFS site here.